iDiscover I Have Superpowers
by Steampunk Beauty
Summary: The iCarly gang stumbles upon an experience that changes their lives. Friendships will be tested, rivalries revisited, love & vulnerabilities revealed. Can the trio stick together or will they fall apart over the obstacles? Eventual mystery pairing.
1. Chapter 1

It was the day that changed all of their lives.

Carly Shay and Freddie Benson were idling in the iCarly studio, tinkering and adjusting the wooden-framed catapult Spencer had designed for them to use in an opening skit.

"And you're sure this thing is safe?" the paranoid boy asked while pulling back the arm of the missile launcher.

Carly shrugged.

"Remember who made it?" she asked.

"Spencer," he affirmed.

"And that should answer your question." Carly loaded a two-pound meatball into the nest and gave Freddie the signal. He released it and with a sharp whistle the meatball sailed straight into the air before striking a carefully placed trashcan lid with a loud CLANG!

"All right!" The two friends high-fived and beamed at each other knowing that if Sam Puckett would just stand in front of where the lid of the trashcan was right now, she would definitely be able to jump up into the air to catch the meatball in her mouth for consumption. The question was how many of them she could go through in a minute. Carly counted in her head the amount of meatballs she had baked this morning while Sam had fidgeted around her in anticipation. She had baked seventy-two… It might not be enough.

Just then, a flash of blonde hair and flapping arms crashed through the room.

"Guys! Oh my god guys! OH IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!" Sam raced through the room holding what looked to be a cereal box in her arms waving it back and forth like a tornado above her head before she slipped it in between her legs and began pantomiming a cowboy riding a bull.

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah! It's here! With my name on it!"

Carly giggled in both amusement and puzzlement.

"What's here?"

"Only the BEST cereal I've ever tasted in muh ENTIRE life!" Sam retorted. Carly snatched the box from her and squinted her eyes as she tried to read the writing on the box.

"It looks Chinese," Freddie chimed in. "Did you order this from the internet?"

Sam nodded. "Them Chinamen sure makes me some good multicolored-marshmallow-accompanied chewy oak bits," she declared while tumultuously tearing the box open and emptying the contents into her mouth. "Armph!" She scowled when she found herself biting into a hidden plastic toy she had poured into her mouth among a sea of cereal. She spit it out and her irritancy was quickly replaced as she released a groan of pleasure when the marshmallow bits began causing heavenly sensations in her mouth.

"Oh. Oh man Carly, you gotta have some!" She pounced on her friend, knocking her backwards onto a beanbag and pushing the box into her hands. Carly indulged Sam, just as she always had and shook the flakes into her hand before bringing it to her mouth. She wasn't expecting too much from a foreign breakfast product but found herself surprisingly jolted by the flavor.

"My digestion system is having a party!" she announced before contentedly falling over into Sam's lap. They both began giggling from the sugar high.

"Want some nerd?" Sam threw the box Freddie's way and he caught it, surprised to feel that it was almost empty. He emptied the rest of the box into his hand and ate the flakes and the marshmallows one at a time in true scientific method ascertaining that every varied piece had a different flavor.

"Yup. Yup. This is pretty amazing," he dazedly admitted. "I'm calculating a perfect 3 to 1, sugar-wheat ratio here." Freddie was the one to most appreciate this tasting experience. His mother only ever gave him cardboard-textured, flavorless health cereal that she plucked from the top shelf at the supermarket. Freddie's body began erratically shaking and twitching from all the sugar coursing through his body. "We have to order more. Sam. What's the website? I'm going to order more. SAM? WE HAVE TO ORDER MORE SAM. SAM. SAM. SA-"

He snapped out of his addict-like state when a well manicured hand came flying across his vision and smacked him across the face. "Calm down nub, we just ate the last box. I ordered it off Auction-bay because the company just went out of business."

"What?!" Carly exclaimed. "No…" she mourned, grabbing the box out of Freddie's trembling hands. "We just found you, how could we lose you so quickly? What cruel God would do this to us?!" She looked into the empty box and fell to the ground, pumping her hands onto the center logo of the happy giraffe and blowing her breath into the carton in a futile attempt to resuscitate it.

"C'mon cupcake, stop acting crazy. That's my job." Sam pulled Carly to her feet and consoled her best friend with a friendly hug. "It's better to have loved and lost than… to not have ever ate some bomb-ass Chinese cereal."

"Why did the company go out of business? It's such good cereal. My tongue is so unhappy now." Carly murmured.

Freddie jumped onto his computer and began typing furiously. His eyes widened when he found the information he was looking for. "Uhhh… guys?" Blue and brown eyes met his questioningly. "The reason their company failed is because of a dozen lawsuits that claimed that a bunch of kids who ate this stuff were radioactively poisoned. This cereal was manufactured next to a nuclear power plant…"

"Eh." Sam shrugged. "I feel okay. Stomach of steel, baby."

"Yeah, but is it a stomach of lead?" Freddie raised his brow. As soon as the words left his mouth, the lights in the studio flickered before blacking out. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed through the window. "Shoot. Hey guys, help me unplug all of the equipment in the room before the electricity comes back on. I don't want anything shorting out."

"Aw, chizz." Sam unhappily elicited. "I hate… having to do stuff." They all moved around the room and began unplugging all of the electronics. After completing their tasks, Carly and Sam leaned on the sturdy, wooden catapult while Freddie grunted, having trouble pulling out a last thick cord. "Come on nub, you're taking too long." Sam wrapped her arms around his waist and started pulling. Finding that the plug was more stubborn than she initially thought, she stepped back and gave a strong jerk. Like dominos, Freddie fell back onto Sam who tripped over Carly and all three felt the burst of tingling when they saw a spark of electricity run up the badly insulated cord and connect with all three tangled bodies.

When the lights came back on, they all had eighties-style, static, rocker hair and the smell of burning wafted through the air.

"I feel like a microwaved burrito." Carly monotonously stated. Sam rotated her head in a forty-five degree angle and licked Carly's cheek. She blinked.

"Needs salsa."

* * *

The next morning Carly hopped out of the shower and ran a towel through her hair muttering to herself about how she shouldn't have stayed up so late with her friends last night and how she knew she was going to be late. She threw on a yellow top and slipped on some capris before skipping down the stairs.

Spencer was cooking pancakes and bacon in the kitchen when he heard his little sister rushing down. _Carly must be in a rush. I should pour some orange juice for her before she leaves. _He thought to himself while opening the fridge door. "No thanks, I'll grab something from school!" Carly called out. _Wait! You need to tell her that you can't pick her up from school today, you need to deliver a sculpture to a customer. _

Spencer began calling after her, "Car-"

"I'll get a ride from Freddie's mom! Hope your client likes your work!"

And the door slammed.

* * *

While this was happening, Sam was running to school in a heavy, green and black striped hoody, a half drowsy mess herself. _Gotta get there soon if I'm gonna steal Freddie's homework to turn in! _Sam steeled herself for the barking and the chasing of two pitbulls as she made her way across mean old McGrudy's yard. She did a little fancy footwork and was able to avoid any snapping jaws. On her way to school, Sam preferred the shortcut of jumping over fences rather than walking around the block the long way. She knew which houses had yards with dogs, had prickly bushes, had inhabitants who woke up early enough to catch her trespassing, and had fences that were too tall to climb over. She avoided all of these.

This morning however, she must've been distracted because she ended up in an unfamiliar yard with the latter. _I'm going to need a running start. _She told herself when she saw the twelve foot brick wall. She backed up before sprinting forward and launching herself off her left foot. Using the momentum built, her hands caught onto the top of the wall and she flipped herself over her obstacle. _Easy._ Sam smirked to herself. She had always been athletically gifted and it was typically expected that any fence would be no trouble. What was unexpected however was that she didn't land in the next yard, no.

She heaved herself over the wall and soared, landing with a heavy THUNK on the far side of the roof on a tall building with barely a strain on her arms. She struggled to catch her balance on the angular down-sloping incline as she began to compose and re-orientate herself. The view caught her breath as she gazed down from the three-story house she was perched on. She blew a tress of golden hair away from her face.

"Woah."

* * *

Freddie was at school. The bell hadn't rang yet so he was leaning against his locker talking to his friends in the AV club. They began walking to their classroom while chatting up their geeky hobbies. "That's not the only thing!" Freddie enthused. "The new XQ-2700 model also had this feature tha-"

"HEY! Watch it dweeb!" A burly jock grunted as Freddy ran into him and his cell phone clattered to the ground. He picked it up and fiddled with it, trying to get back to texting his girlfriend. "Damn! The screen's scrambled… Now you die!" He ferociously called out, pulling back his fist.

"Wait! I didn't mean to!" But at the same time, Freddie flinched, readying himself for the thick knuckle that would plow into his cheek.

But it never came. The burly jock was holding his fist to himself as though he had shattered it. He threw a punch with his other arm and Freddie clenched his eyes shut willing that the pain would be minimal, praying that the swing would miss him. It connected with the air two centimeters away from his face before it glanced off and left him unscathed. By this time, the bell had rung and everyone in the halls had scrambled to class. It was just him and the raging athlete. Perplexed, the jock roared in frustration and ran at Freddie, aiming to grapple and wail on him. Freddie put his hands up in front of himself to protect his face when a force field shot out of his fingertips, knocking the bully back six feet, slamming him against the opposite wall. His body fell limp at the impact.

Freddie stared astonished at the dented metal of the lockers and the unconscious athlete. He gaped at his hands before slowly tucking them into his front pockets.

* * *

**Author's note: Hey iCarly fans, this is my first story and I intend it to be a lengthy one. Reviews are appreciated and would push me to get chapters in quicker. Hope you enjoy where it goes. ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

It was exhilarating. Sam was running as fast as the wild horses she always saw on the Discovery Channel as a kid. She was jumping distances that were unheard of, from rooftop to rooftop, from branch to branch of the tallest trees. _Sam Puckett, the Flying Squirrel. _She grinned to herself. Well, if she ever ran away to join the circus, she had an act and a name. _This is what freedom feels like. _The wind caught her hair and she inhaled a deep breath of it, taking pleasure as it invigorated her muscles. School was the last thing on her mind right now as she explored her newfound abilities. She wasn't sure if it was the cup of coffee she had this morning or all the protein she'd been feeding herself lately but today she just felt… better, stronger, faster.

She found herself on a fire-escape balcony overlooking a familiar alleyway with a welcoming dark-haired boy throwing a ball through a mounted hoop. She swung herself down and jumped onto the retractable metal ladder. Loud switches clicked and gears whirled as the weight of her extended the ladder downwards. The sound of it caught the attention of the crowd loitering the narrow space. "Puckett!" One of them called out jovially, ambling towards her to take her hand and escort her off the ladder. She accepted his help and hopped off the bottom rung with grace.

"Griffin!" she cheered back, bumping her fist against his in solidarity.

Sam and Griffin had an interesting history, to say at the very least. This was the bad boy that Carly had fallen for but found too immature for her tastes. After they broke up, Griffin found that his disposition and sense of humor was more relatable to his ex-girlfriend's blonde friend. At the approval of Carly, they both began dating.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Their domineering attitudes constantly fought for command and neither of them could take the other very seriously at all. They were both impulsive creatures that would chase danger without any other thought in their heads. Sometimes it spelled trouble.

Once, they had both gone out together to paint the town red, literally, with spray cans and ski masks in tow. After a night in jail for vandalism, they came to similar conclusions about their relationship. "I think I'm better off dating someone more wholesome, sweeter, someone who could keep me on a tighter leash. You're definitely not the boy-next-door that I might need, Griff." Sam heartbreakingly admitted to him. He nodded his head in acknowledgement, declaring that it was fine because he felt the same way. They broke up on good terms simply realizing that although they were terrible as a couple, they were legendary as friends.

She pulled him aside and pushed him against the brick wall of the alleyway. "Are these the guys you play basketball with?" She whispered to him, holding him close to her conspiratorially. At this move, three guys in jerseys began hooting and hollering. One taller Latino friend of his urged Griffin to, "Get some!" while on the other end of the spectrum, another blonde friend yelled, "What are you doing with a kid like him when you can have a man like me?"

"Hey, shut it guys!" Griffin called out, a little uneasy about the disrespect they were showing Sam. He returned his attention back squarely on her, nodding his head, "Yeah, what about it?"

Her eyes sparkled, "Two on three, you and me vs. them, put five hundred dollars on it."

Griffin didn't know what she was up to and he didn't have a dime to his name at the present time. But the one thing he did know was that that he trusted her. In half an hour, she would make sure he had no regrets about it.

* * *

Carly inserted her head into her locker, urging the three aspirins she popped earlier to kick in and ease her migraine. The school hallways seemed impossibly loud today. In every class that Carly tried to pay attention to her teacher, she was distracted by the whispers of her fellow classmates. She couldn't distinguish what anyone was saying at all. It sounded like inane gibberish and it exasperated her headache. But like the good girl she was, Carly decided that she would tough it out and finish the school day before going home to lie down. She checked her cell phone and saw that it was just lunchtime and she still had hours to go before she was relieved of her scholarly burden.

"Darn you, you darn clock, why must you hold so much power over the daily events of my young yet ambition-driven life?" Carly pouted to herself.

A clucking sound resonated behind her. "Dirty mouth Shay, that verbiage was pretty extreme." Carly turned around to see the wry grin of her tomboyish best friend. As per usual, Sam was beaming at her in that way that told her she had recently been up to no good.

"…I know that look. Troublemaker! What trouble have you been making? You must tell me so that we may go unmake it! And… why are your shoes so scuffed up? Its tongue is hanging out."

Sam shook her head while she restlessly passed her weight from foot to foot, "Just breaking them in. Don't worry about it. What we need to concern ourselves with is Freddie. He called me earlier and told me that he was caught in a fight today, we need to find him."

"A fight? With who? Is that fifth-grade redheaded girl beating him up for his lunch money again?" Carly sighed in exasperation.

"Yes. One and the same… if that that fifth-grade redheaded girl goes by the alias of Oscar Abrego, plays defense for the football team and can bench three times her weight."

"Punchbeef Plankchest Abrego!" Carly gasped.

"Is that what you call him? I've always called him Steakface McManMuscle Abrego." Sam noted, comparing the two nicknames.

"Oh god, which hospital is Freddie at? I'll call a cab."

* * *

Carly and Sam didn't know what to expect when they rushed back to the iCarly studio after a call from Freddie saying that he survived but that he had holed itself somewhere he thought would be safe. Carly pictured her barely breathing, black and blue best friend laying face down in a puddle of his own blood on her floor. The image Sam's mind had conjured up was of Freddie rocking himself to sleep, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with his mother puting a diaper on him and pulling up his pants due to his being paralyzed from the waist down. Before they left school, she had already struck a deal with Rip-off Rodney to buy a second-hand wheelchair from him for fifty bucks. _So what if it squeaks a little?_

"What squeaks a little?" Carly asked, pushing her key into the keyhole and throwing open the door.

"Huh?" Sam asked as she walked in and threw her red and black checkered backpack onto the couch.

"What squeaks a little?" Carly repeated.

"My mom's rusty car, Spencer's exacto-knives, Freddie's pocket protector, hobo shopping carts, your adorable yawns?" Sam queried, reacting to the peculiar riddle. "I don't have a clue, you know I'm bad at brainteasers."

"Adorable? Why thank you." Carly responded, looking pleased with herself. A low-pitched keening was heard from upstairs and it effectively put the brakes on her self-satisfied moment. "I'll grab the first aid kit!" Carly called out, scurrying to the bathroom.

"I'll grab a bag of ice," Sam blurted in return, trying to make herself look useful. She opened the fridge and found a drumstick sitting on a plate. Greedily grabbing at it, she chomped into its meaty flesh. _Oh chicken little, I thank you for your sacrifice. _Gripping the meat tight between her teeth, she shrugged off and removed her hoody. She opened the freezer door and began loading ice cubes galore into her makeshift sack, wrapping and tying the sleeves together before slinging it over her shoulder.

Meeting Carly at the stairs, they both sprinted up and made their way towards the cries of distress. They were not prepared in any way for what they saw through the doorway. Both sets of eyes grew as wide as dinner plates.

"Watch out!" Freddie bellowed as Carly and Sam entered through the doorway. A flying stapler skimmed across the top of their heads as they ducked in unison. They gazed in awe at their completely trashed filming room. It looked as though a tornado had ripped through it. Beanbag chairs and bigger props were floating above the ground aimlessly while smaller objects whizzed through the air like miniature heat-seeking drones. "I can't… I can't control it!" Freddie brayed as he helplessly put his face into the palms of his hands.

"Freddie!" Carly called out in concern as she made her way across the war zone-resembling room. "It's okay. We just need to tie everything down. That's what my dad says the Navy does when things start rocking back and forth." Carly closed her eyes and hugged Freddie tightly to herself, pecking him on the cheek before reaching up and tugging down a blanket that was statically magnetized to the ceiling. She threw it on top of the shaking boy to help get rid of his dizziness and vertigo.

"Heads up!" Sam threw a roll of duct tape at Carly overhearing her advice and taking her instruction. Carly grabbed the trashcan lid floating in the air to shield herself from the speeding objects that whisked through the air while she forced the catapult down onto the floor and fastened it down with a long strip of the silvery material. She looked around the room at all of the heavy objects looking as though they were suspended in water. With a twinge of regret, as much as she would've loved to take a ride around the room on her floating Cadillac model, she prioritized safety first and bound it down.

Sam was lucky enough to have picked up a hockey helmet she found fluttering past her and snapped it on, relieved to know that if anything, at least her eyes would be protected. She placed her chicken drumstick against the wall and sealed the end of it with tape. "I'll be back for you later." When she let it go, it wavered back and forth as if saying goodbye to her.

Sam focused on retrieving and securing the delicate and expensive items. She jumped into the air to save Freddie's laptop before it crashed into the doorway and wrapped tape around it so that is stayed on top of a wooden support beam. Cameras were found and she haphazardly strapped them to herself. Microphones, speakers, remotes and cords were thrown into cardboard boxes, folded shut and flung into the closet. "Ouch!" She constantly had to swat things away. This time, they were pushpins from the iCarly corkboard that were flying towards her.

As Sam and Carly rounded up and put away all of the fragile and heavy items, they scanned across the room at everything they couldn't possibly collect: small items like pencils and marbles and pieces of paper. Sam had grabbed a pool cue and opened up the latch of the tall window to the apartment hoping that like an airplane, the new opening would suck out all of the items like a vacuum. It was to no avail. A very tiny percentage of the circling objects flew out the window. "Movies lie. They're nothing but lying sacks of liary lies!" Sam frustratingly called out.

Carly was at a loss for how to handle the situation. The longer the room was in a state of chaos and disarray, the weaker the duct tape became. The will of the objects were to float upwards and everything they taped down were struggling to break free. Some larger articles managed to escape their binds and crashed into the ceiling. There were holes, big and small, in the walls everywhere.

Carly retreated back to home base at Freddie and began shaking him as he stared at the floor, stupified. The blanket she had put over his head had already glided away. "Freddie, what can we do? Can we move you? What happened? Come on Freddie, please try to stop this. Stop whatever it is you're doing." A shooting pair of scissors caught her on her shoulder and a thin line of blood revealed itself as she yelped in pain and surprise. Freddie looked at her, speechless in horror.

As soon as his gaze met hers, she began lifting off. "Holy smoke!" She began grabbing at the stunned silent boy to use as an anchor but this twisted gravity that pulled her upwards and outward was too strong. "Help! Sam!" Carly was floating towards the open window and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could hold onto and nothing she could push herself against.

"Fuzzy navel!" Sam cursed as she dashed towards Carly and leaped into the air. Her fingertips barely grazed their counterpart before they slipped from her grip. Whatever force of gravity that was propelling the brunette was not doing the same for her best friend. Carly was in a wind that was taking her closer and closer to the open window. Sam knew she had to do something and do it quickly before one of the people she cared most about in the world would plummet eight floors onto the hard pavement of the streets of Seattle.

_I didn't want to do this. Sorry Freddie. _Sam grabbed a flat screen computer monitor that was drifting at eye-level towards her and slammed it into the back of Freddie's head.

* * *

**Author's Note: How does everyone feel about the Sam/Griffin friendship I inserted in there? I'm not sure whether this is belated or premature but I'm still unsure on which romantic pairing I should feature as a subplot. I do have a few chapters to go before I have to commit because I like my romances slow and well-developed but any suggestions would be welcome.**

**Thank you to coffeerunt, lozzie15 and rweasley500 for the feedback. I'll keep writing as long as people keep reading and reviewing. ^_^**


	3. Chapter 3

As the computer monitor impacted with Freddie's skull, his head snapped forward in a sickening crack and his unconscious body slumped to the ground. Everything in the room froze in place before a shower of objects plummeted to the floor in a dead drop, Carly included. She broke her fall on the carpeted surface with her face, resulting in a bloody lip and a forming bruise on her left temple. Crying out in pain, she clutched at her injured shoulder and curled her knees into her chest.

"I did it… I killed him," Sam began to confess as she unclipped her hockey helmet and discarded it. "I've been close plenty of times but I always figured that it would be a malfunctioning homicidal robot-girlfriend that got him in the end." She sunk into the floor in a daze. "Carly, when I go to prison, will you write to me?" The brunette groaned bringing attention to her own injury and Sam snapped out of her haze. "Carly? Carly!" She leapfrogged over Freddie's prone body, picked up a stray pillow and slid it underneath her friend's head. Carly whimpered in gratitude.

"Check his pulse," she mewled, motioning to Freddie. Sam scurried to Freddie's body, untied his left shoe and throwing it behind her, rolled down his sock and put the sole of his foot up to her ear. Carly's eyes squinted at this strange behavior. "Sam?"

"I'm trying! I'm trying! I don't hear the ocean at all!"

"That's seashells Sam!" she griped. "Bring him over here!" Sam dragged Freddie's body by his left foot over to Carly whose intense pain had ebbed into a dull throbbing. She didn't let it distract her. Placing her finger under his neck, she gave a relieved sigh as she felt a weak heartbeat. Hers pulsed faster as soon as she realized that there was a stripe of blood trailing from where Freddie's body had lain to the position he was laying now. Frantically rolling Freddie's body over, she gasped at the matted blood pooling at the base of his head. All she knew at that moment was that to stop the bleeding, she had to relieve the pressure. She pulled the pillowcase off of the pillow Sam had collected for her and pressed it into the back of her tech producer's head. The white fabric quickly lost its color as it soaked in the waves of red. _Clot, clot, clot, please clot! _"Call Spencer! We need to take Freddie to the hospital!"

"Done!" Sam yelled as she flipped open her cell phone and began dialing. As beaten and bruised as Carly was, it was nothing compared to her emotional state. With her best effort, she tried to stay calm. But looking at Freddie splayed out in her lap, she began having trouble breathing. _Come on Freddie, hold on. You don't have holes in your head. You're very unholy. I call you that all the time. My unholy Freddie. _Dizziness began to overtake her and Carly's body began to feel very heavy. "Carls, are you okay?" Three wavy, diluted, rotating images of Sam treaded towards her with concern in their eyes.

"Yeah, I just feel kind of hot…" Carly looked down at her hands which had split apart like a hydra into six hands. "Holy Hindu goddess!" Carly dropped the ruined pillowcase in shock and shuffled herself backwards until her head hit the wall behind her. She felt as though she was about to lose her stomach but gulped it down as Sam began shaking her.

"Cupcake, look! He stopped bleeding!" Carly knew she had to be hallucinating now because out of the corner of her eye, with Freddie's body turned away from her, she noticed that the gash on the back of his head was gone. In its place was whole, smooth, untouched skin.

* * *

Carly twiddled her thumbs restlessly trying not to scratch at her stitches while Sam paced up and down the hallway cracking her knuckles in anxiety. They were both outside a window where Freddie's body was hooked up to a breathing apparatus. The doctors were waiting on his x-ray photos to develop.

"Carly," a voice called out.

"I don't want to talk about it Sam."

"You did something back there," she murmured.

"No. No, I didn't. I did not. Not a thing." Carly's voice began to get more frantic as she tried to convince herself of her own normalcy, "At least, I don't think I did. I did nothing! Oh who are we kidding? Yes I did! I did do something! A very big something! There was a thing of some kind that I did!"

"You healed him, Sweetheart. You know what that means? You're Jesus. You know what I did? I almost killed him. You know who else killed a lot of people? Hitler. I'm Hitler and you're Jesus. I'm evil, you're good. I sport a meticulous mustache and you're rocking the white robe. This is some trash. I am always the bad guy!" Sam growled enviously.

"Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. We must be possessed or something. There's no explanation for what happened in there!" Sam, sensing that the tall brunette was veering towards a meltdown, stopped mid-stride and pulled Carly towards her, wrapping her arms around her comfortingly. "I just... I'm so confused. I hate being full of confusion. It's so confusing!"

Sam rubbed circles on her on the back in consolation, "I've been there kid. It's like that one time in the lobby when I was pawing at a delivered jar of cookies and tried my hardest to take a handful of them out. My fist got stuck and I turned into a raging Samzilla"

Carly gave a faint smile at the memory, "Then I told you to calm down and that you had to let them all go and take out one at a time. But you were stubborn and insisted on swinging your arm in circles until you accidentally knocked out Lewbert."

"Accidentally? Speak for yourself," the blonde smirked, "and that's how we'll manage to deal with this Shay, stealing one cookie at a time, punching out one doorman at a time." Carly nodded her head and snuggled her cheek into the nook of Sam's shoulder, grateful to have such a supportive friend.

"I heart you Puckett."

"And I heart cookies… And you. It's a pretty close race. You win though."

* * *

When Spencer came back from the hospital's cafeteria, he returned with a tray of questionable food that the two girls annihilated with their safety sporks. Carly and Sam had both skipped breakfast and lunch so Spencer stood there spork in hand not able to get a bite in edgewise. Another half hour and a doctor came by and declared that Freddie had woken up, he had a minor concussion, no internal bleeding and it was fine to see him. Evening hours, however, prevented them from all going in at the same time to visit so two of them had to wait.

Carly knew how bad Sam felt at this point so she encouraged her to be the one to go in and talk to him. "That's a good idea." Spencer agreed, "I want to go show Carly my newest exhibit anyways, it's only a few blocks from here so we'll come back later to take you home." Sam accepted the plan and waved a farewell to them as she opened the door to Freddie's room with a hesitant creak. He lifted his head and smiled at her as she sauntered in.

"Hey nub, how're you feeling?"

"You know that time Spencer made a sculpture by smashing in a tin box with a sledgehammer?"

"Mmmhm."

"I'm that tin box."

"Good, you big dummy, that's what you deserve for going all poltergeist on us." She hated how her statement came out. She meant for it to be an insult, but god help her, it sounds like a _compliment_, all soft and affectionate and gentle. She guessed it was because of the twinge of regret she felt for being the one to hurt him.

"I have something for you." Sam finally admitted. Her tongue darted out, licking her lips nervously as she set herself down in the chair next to his bed. He raised his brow at her questioningly. She began leaning towards him when her self-consciousness got the better of her and she turned stiff.

"Well, what is it?" Freddie asked. Sam extended her pointer finger towards him and beckoned him closer with it. He began to finally see how worried she was by the guilt shimmering in her eyes. He inched closer to her, violating the number one rule of 'Sam's bubble.' As he found himself in Sam's personal space, he caught the scent of cinnamon spices, the familiar soap that Sam bathed in. It drew him in nearer. Their eyes locked and the usual icy silver coldness of Sam's irises had turned into warmer watery blue. Instinctively Freddie's found his gaze lowering to Sam's full, pursed lips. Ironically, his mind was getting cloudy but he began to notice smaller details. For one, they were evenly complimentary in breaths, inhaling and exhaling in sync. And secondly, he could feel Sam's arms looping around him and settling around the back of his neck. She pulled him closer.

"I just… this is what I wanted to give you," Sam whispered, her chin tilted slightly. He shut his eyes and parted his lips. Since that night between the both of them on the fire escape, he'd been wondering if another opportunity to kiss her would rise. This seemed perfect. But as quickly as the intimate moment presented itself, it passed. With his eyes closed and lips unkissed, Freddie felt Sam move away from him. He perceived something caressing his chest and looked down to see what it was. Hanging over his chest was a small, plastic, orange whistle. "It was the prize in last night's cereal box. I looped some spearmint dental floss through it to make you a necklace. Now you'll have a way to signal us for help when stuff starts flying around again and it'll get rid of the reek of tick lotion you carry around with you." Sam bantered at him, back in true form.

"If that was what you consider helping, I think I'm better off just bashing my head against the wall." Freddie retorted. Sam flinched at the truth in the statement.

A knock sounded at the door and Miss Benson's hysterical face could be seen peeking through the slim vertical window. Freddie groaned and flopped back onto the medical bed. Sam stood up from the chair and made her way out of the room to facilitate the, 'one visitor per room,' policy. "I'll see you tomorrow Fredwurst sausages. Be sure not to croak, at least not before you write a will giving me your stereo system."

* * *

Meanwhile the Shay siblings were traipsing through the city and Carly was explaining to her brother the details of what had happened at their apartment. The usually honest girl didn't like to lie but she didn't know how to retell the story of events that occurred without sounding crazy so she decided that omission seemed to be the best bet. "It was a crazy failed stunt." She said, hoping her voice would stay strong. "I'm sorry about the holes everywhere. I'll take a part-time job to help pay for them myself if I have to."

"No worries sis, Socko has a French cousin named Wally and his wife Fleur. They own a carpentry company so we can hire them to fix the walls and the floor. They'll give us a reasonable discount. I just don't want you doing whatever you did ever again. I want to live to see you turn eighteen so you can go off to college and get a good education and get a great career and support your very handsome but occupationally-unlucky brother Spencer, yeah!" He optimistically bolstered, lightly punching his younger sister a few times for effect. Carly gave in to his energy and gave him a slug in the side, laughing as he clutched at his gut and feigned a hemorrhage.

They stopped on a sidewalk in front of a cramped dusty art gallery that Spencer raved about. "That's it! Right there, see my work?" he asked, pointing to the display in the window. Carly took in the sight of the suspicious dilapidated building. She wasn't sure if she believed him. It looked like a pawn shop more so than anything else.

"Oh yeah… it's awesome Spencer." She studiously scrutinized the sculpture he was showing her. It was a four-foot tall, giant, slender jar of Skippy-Trippy-Fally peanut-butter holding several golf clubs in it that were lathered in the edible material. A strap was attached to the cylindrical figure to entice a resemblance to a golf bag that a caddy would carry.

"Guess what's it called?" Spencer excitedly urged her.

"Uhhhh…" _Peanut putter!_ His mind shouted. "Peanut putter?" she put forward.

"PEANUT PUTTER! My sister knows me so well! I didn't even have to give you a clue!" He beamed at her and rustled the top of her head affectionately. Spencer was jazzed up about his work. He was enthusiastic that someone in this world could interpret his vision and understand his love of wordplay. He didn't catch the look of queasiness Carly was experiencing as she suddenly realized she had the ability to read minds.

* * *

"Very intriguing Mr. Tibbles, wouldn't you agree?" an effeminate voice echoed through a dark room. A scratchy black and white image of the iCarly trio looped over and over on a computer screen while a young boy scratches his porcupine behind the ears. Nevel knew that one day, the tiny hidden camera he had planted in the iCarly studio would pay off with the information he gathered. However, what he saw was nothing that he would have ever anticipated. "Fredward Benson has somehow developed the technology to manipulate gravity. Unfortunately his natural ineptitude at life in general has served him his comeuppance and the boy has failed miserably in his ability to control his newfangled invention. So let me examine my quandary. Do I notify the appropriate authorities and let the governing law of the land take its share or do I seek to pillage and steal the scientific schematics for myself? On one hand, my venture in journalism would attain a breakthrough status if I was the first to leak this story. But then, a bit of subterfuge would gain me so much more. This is something to ponder over, indeed."

Reaching into a desk drawer, he pulled out a candle and placed it on the table, lighting it gingerly with a stroke of a match. He placed a plated carrot in front of his porcupine and reached for his cell phone. "Mr. Tibbles. Begin supper without me, I have business to attend to. I promise that we will rise to this occasion. At an any cost, we will reap the rewards!"

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you to Virgeoleo23, Sharkofthemist120 and trainwreck17. Your critiques are really encouraging. My story although having a pretty well thought out plotline is still open to any subplots that anyone can offer. Read and review. It gives me nourishment for mind and body. ^_^**


	4. Chapter 4

Hours after Marissa Benson spoke with her son, Freddie was granted hospital leave with a clean bill of health and driven home. Exhausted, he pulled his shirt and pants off, lazily leaving it on the floor wrinkled and unfolded before sliding into bed only in his briefs. He'd deal with it tomorrow. _So grateful it's going to be a Saturday._

* * *

It was to his surprise the next morning when he woke up that the flat of his back was pressing against the ceiling. Smacking his lips and rubbing at his sleepy eyes, he took in a good moan-inducing stretch before… "Aaaauughh! " His arms instinctively grasped for a handhold against the walls. It took a minute for him to realize he didn't need one. His body was levitating and he was in no danger of falling down. "Uh… Uh… Think Freddie. Calm and collected, just like Duke Cloudrunner from Galaxy Wars." Without panic, Freddie took a deep inhale, assessing the situation.

_Well.._ He thought. _Gravity is inverted but the pressure of it isn't heavier than normal so I should be able to stand up._ Freddie planted his hands behind him for leverage and lifted his shoulders from the wall, pulling his knees up at the same time and tucking them to his chest. Holding his arms out to steady himself, he stood up, upside down and winced as he bumped his head against the top of his desk lamp, knocking it upwards to the floor above his head. "Why do these things happen to me? I'm a good person…" Freddie mournfully insisted to nobody in particular. Tilting his chin upwards, his eyes searched for his cell phone and finding the device laying on his bed, he unsuccessfully hopped up a few times before finally grabbing it on his fourth try. A quick dial and Carly and Sam were on their way.

"You know, you really should really eat more vegetables," Carly mentioned as she walked in side by side with her best friend. The two girls were still dressed in pajama pants and tank tops from their sleepover. Sam was biting into a sausage link while Carly waved around a baby carrot to illustrate her point.

"Bacon is the fat girl's vegetable," Sam retorted, before going back to chewing the piece of sausage in her mouth. With a premature gulp, she swallowed it in surprise as soon as she spotted Freddie hanging from the ceiling. "Ho chizz, what the heck are you doing up there Freduardo?" She blinked her eyes, making sure that they weren't playing tricks on her. Sam looked over at Carly to find confirmation that she wasn't alone in seeing a half-naked Freddie clinging to the ceiling. The brunette's jaw was gaped in awe, baby carrot fallen to the ground.

"Oh, well you know," Freddie shrugged his shoulders depreciatively, " I thought this corner looked a little dusty so I decided to- JUST GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!" he smartly shouted.

"Okay, grab my hand Freddie, I'll pull you down!" Carly called to him. She figured it shouldn't be too hard, just like plucking away a helium balloon floating in a high corner. Two hands met and clasped in the middle of the room, one from above and one from below. A sharp tug commenced but instead of Freddie falling down, Carly flew into the air and collided with the vaulting. "Umph!" Freddie helped her to her feet.

"I did not sign up for this," Sam muttered to herself as she took another bite of her sausage. "Over to the bed Carls," she directed and Carly did as she was told. Sam reached up, jerked her down with all her might and was rewarded with a disoriented Carly tumbling into Freddie's sheets. "Take a hard long look nerd, this is the only time you'll ever see her in this position." Sam snarkily commented. Carly bounced out of his bed as Freddie walked over and Sam did the same for him. With a grunt, he toppled down, covering his face well in advance for impact.

Carly failed to conceal her giggle, "Nice nips Freddie." His eyes widened before he pulled a blanket to himself covering his bare chest. Carly playfully ribbed at him, "Nothing I haven't already seen. Besides, Sam's are bigger."

Dark eyebrows knotted. "Wha? How-"

"Gym class locker rooms," Sam explained nonchalantly pulling out a button up shirt from one of his drawers. She tossed it at him. "Now cover up them nips and come get some breakfast at Casa de Shay. Weird chizz has been happening and we got stuffs to talk about."

"Now that's the understatement of the year," Freddie griped, putting his arm through a sleeve.

* * *

"The best way to solve this predicament is to systematically analyze our options and find rational solutions by scientific method," Freddie suggested, leaning over the kitchen counter.

"BORING," came an interjection from the couch. Sets of brown and blue eyes met antagonistically. "As far as we've seen, all the craziness we've been through over the past two days revolved around you. Methinks if Carly and I stop hanging out with you, everything irons out back to normalcy." Sam spread her fingers out in a flattening motion.

"Ummm… that's not exactly true." Carly hesitantly admitted from her barstool.

"What do you mean?" Freddie asked.

"As crazy as this sounds… I can read minds." Carly announced with a completely straight face.

"You can't read minds!" A snort accompanied by a chuckle left the disbelieving blonde.

"I can too!" Carly challenged.

"Well what am I thinking then?"

"You wish you had some turkey."

"No duh." Sam rolled her eyes.

"You wish you had some ham."

"Obvious," she scoffed.

"You wish you had some pizza!"

"Tell me something I don't know."

"You wish you had a turkey stuffed with ham that you could wrap a pizza around so you could do a ritualistic fire dance in tribal war-paint yelling, 'All hail Turhamizza!'"

"…damn, she's good." Sam finally relented. "Okay, so what is he thinking? No dirty thoughts Freddie!" Freddie's cheeks flushed as a myriad of thoughts swam through his mind. Carly bit her bottom lip and squinted her eyes as she tried to infer the musings of the young tech producer. She surveyed him quizzically.

"I'm not getting anything… all I can sense are a bunch of zeroes and ones."

Freddie's face transformed into a perfect depiction of complete pride and self-admiration. "Really? Heh, you can't tell what I'm thinking because you don't know binary code. I've trained myself to think in computer language, complete with logic gates."

Carly and Sam both stared at him with blank faces. "You know Sam," Carly supplied, "that idea about us not hanging out with him doesn't sound so bad anymore."

"No, no it doesn't," Sam agreed.

"This isn't the point, can you do this with everyone Carly?" Freddie questioned.

"I… I don't think so. With Spencer, I feel like I can hear him loud and clear all the time. But when we visited a taco stand yesterday, I didn't get a thing from the taco guy until he asked me for my order, then I heard him thinking real quietly about all the things he was going to put in the taco meat so Spencer and I left hungry and I'm telling you now, don't ever EVER buy anything from Antonio's cart on Third Boulevard," she shuddered.

Freddie nodded sagely. "So, the more you know somebody, the louder you can hear their thoughts. And if you meet somebody you don't know, the instant that they speak to you, their thoughts can be heard just barely. That makes a lot of sense. It's like satellite communications, both satellites have to be receptive to each other for waves to pass through them and because you're so used to being around Spencer, you're already attuned to his frequency."

Carly and Sam both gave each other knowing looks before simultaneously groaning. "Guess what?" Sam bragged, "I can kick Spiderman's ass." Freddie's brow rose in doubt. "It's true. If you put Spiderman and me at one end of the city in a race to the other end, I'll beat him. I can probably outbench him too and I'd steal that redhead girlfriend of his. I wouldn't even need those dorky red and blue tights to do it."

"Prove it," Freddie defied.

"Mmhm. I anticipated your lack of faith in me. Observe." Sam leaped off the couch and ran into Spencer's room. A rustling and a few clanks gave way to a giant replica of juxtaposed Newton balls hanging from ropes being wheeled into the living room. Sam followed with hedge clippers and cut the bowling balls from their ties, handing one ball to Freddie and one to Carly. She put the clippers down and lugged three of her own balls, measuring their weight with the palms of her hands. "When I tell you, throw them at me."

"Uh, Sam, I don't think that's such a good id-"

"Just do it Frederonie, don't ask questions." Sam began pitching the balls one at a time in the air before catching them with her other hand, using their momentum to toss it up once more. A few seconds passed, and she had a full-on coordinated juggle going on with the heavy globes. "Okay. Now!" She ordered and Carly heaved her ball Sam's direction. Sam easily integrated the new piece into her cycle. "Freddie, go for it!" Freddie reluctantly slung his ball towards the blonde and she claimed it with minimal trouble, accommodating the new quantity in her performance. "There you go ladies and gentlemen," Sam announced without breaking a sweat, "you are officially seeing a tenth grade girl, all of one hundred and thirty five pounds, juggling five twelve-pound bowling balls in admirable succession. I am pretty freaking amazing." One by one, she caught them in her arms and set them down in a bundle at her feet. She flexed her biceps and kissed them. "Mama's guns!"

Freddie stood there speechless, disturbed and a little aroused. Carly just beamed at Sam with her heart in her eyes. "Amazing," he murmured. He shook his head to clear away unrelated thoughts.

"So, something peculiar is happening to all of us, where did it come from and what do we do about it?" Carly asked.

"We must've been exposed to a substance. Something we inhaled, ingested, had skin contact with… it could've been anything. We need to make a list." Freddie recommended.

"You want me to make a list of what I've ingested in the last few days? Ingested as in eaten, right? How many rainforests do you really want me to mow down?" Sam skeptically asked him. "This would cause more environmental damage than plopping down a couple of nuclear power plants in the middle of the Amazon."

With that, two lost puzzle pieces snapped together in Freddie's brain, "Wait, what did you say?"

"I'm not making a stupid list!"

"No! Nuclear power plant. It's the cereal! We ate radioactive cereal, it must've done something to us!"

"That sounds curiously convenient but no whammy. I've eaten that cereal eight weeks in a row before and it didn't bulk me up like I was the Incredible Hulk." Sam said, poking a hole in his theory.

"But during any of those times, did you get shocked with lightning right after you've eaten it? In chem lab, we learned that electricity is a catalyst for chemical reactions, it speeds everything up tenfold. That little radiation considered usually harmless could've been exponentially multiplied!" A fist flew out at Freddie and struck him square in the chest, knocking him down. When Freddie peered up, it was Sam's face hovering over him.

"What did I tell you about using five or more syllables in a word when you're talking to us?" Sam snarled. She was dragged off of him by an aggravated Carly.

"Sam! You're abusing your strength! Freddie! Keep it monosyllab… Keep it short." Freddie stood up, glowering at Sam while brushing himself off and smoothing his hands through his hair.

"In conclusion, I think we need to find a way to reverse it. I have a feeling that these new.. abilities are going to get us in trouble."

"Get YOU in trouble nub. Carly's powers saved your life and mine got me some cold hard green so I say we kick back and enjoy the ride."

"Saved my life?"

"No… Yes… Sort of. You almost killed me so Sam almost killed you and then I put my hands on you and you were better. But I don't know if it was really came from me because..." Carly gestured to the cut on her shoulder and the bruise over her left eyebrow. "I've been trying to see if my wonky voodoo worked with my injuries, and it doesn't." She traced the stitches on her skin tenderly. "I have so many questions…"

Freddie fought his urge to pull Carly into a hug and instead grabbed a nearby napkin and fished a pen from his pocket, sliding them over the kitchen counter to Sam. "Do you remember what the logo on the cereal box looked like?" Sam grinned at him. She never forgot a good snack product's trademark. Her long fingers wrapped around his offered pen and went to work, wrist tilting back and forth, her drawing instrument making small circles and then bigger ones. She finished up by shading in the little details before flipping it back towards him.

He picked up the napkin with the anthropomorphic giraffe beaming back at him and handed it to Carly who examined it with interest. That's when Freddie made a promise to her that they wouldn't be in the dark for much longer. "This is who we have to get in contact with," he said. "Here lies our answers."

* * *

**Author's Note: Oooh, this one was more wordy and less actiony but I needed to forward the plot in a way where we could pin down the motives of our trio. Thank you to Beautiful Belle, the_Stafflord, and Lanter for reviewing. I had noticed that Sharkofthemist120 had mentioned that our boy-hero has been lacking in dialogue so this chapter was kind of Freddie-centric. I think I geeked him up a lot more than in usual fanfiction. Virgeoleo23 has also given me great inspiration to include a subplot that you'll see develop in the future as well. I have decided on a love triangle (possibly parallelogram if you include Griffin) and there will be curveballs galore so keep on guessing. Btw, I need a female name, normal or strange, so include them in your review, my favorites will be included in the next chapter. ^_^**


	5. Chapter 5

All of Chinatown smelled like one giant fried dumpling. Sam's mouth couldn't stop watering. Every storefront window on the narrow street was packed with a brightly lit display of food, either a rack of hanging meats or ducklings or doughy pastries. Most of it looked fairly gross, of course, but the smell was incredible. The blonde sucked in a deep breath of the cool afternoon air. She couldn't believe she'd never discovered this neighborhood. Chinatown was tailor-made for somebody like her; somebody who could live on desserts and fried food until their heart gave out.

A gentle squeeze brought her back to reality and to the mission she was currently burdened with. "I promise cream-cheese wontons with sweet and sour sauce on the way out," Carly promised indulgently. The slim brunette was less appreciative of the sights and wanted to leave as quickly as humanly possible. Abashedly, Carly got nervous in unaccustomed territory with unfamiliar people milling about. This was evident in the way the taller girl had her pinkie finger wrapped with Sam's to ensure they wouldn't get separated. It was a habit the shorter of the two found to be completely unnecessary and innocuous but which she tolerated out of affection for her friend. Ahead of them, walked the leader of their little expedition.

As of the moment, he wasn't doing such a dynamic job at leading. "I'm just not finding it, these streets are twisting back and forth and intersecting in a way that's not matching the maps I downloaded." Surveying his maps, Freddie noticed a water spot in the upper right hand corner of one of the sheets. He tilted his head up to look at the rainclouds gathering above them. "I think we're going to get a little wet pretty soon too."

"Tell me again what we're looking for?" Carly politely requested.

"A local distributor of the Happy Giraffe cereal. The closest one I found listed is an oriental dime store called The Taozhou Bazaar. It's supposed to be somewhere around here but all I can see are these little marketplace stalls…" Freddie looked around to inspect his panoramic view when something caught his attention. "Hey! Did you see that?"

"What?" Sam and Carly both asked, bobbing their heads around to look over their shoulders. Nothing stood out to either of them, just shoppers, shoppers and more shoppers. Also, a few chickens running free in the street, but that wasn't an uncommon sight either, considering the setting.

"I thought I saw a guy ducking behind a corner after I caught him staring at us." Freddie testified, suspicion lurking in his voice.

"A lot of people are staring at us Poindexter." Sam noted observationally, "You're the only guy here over five foot four inches. We're the only girls here who aren't Asian. I feel my eyes getting slantier by the minute. Gah! Walking through this place better be making me smarter at math."

"Sam, what did I tell you about stereotyping?" Carly reminded.

"I'm mostly right but it's not politically correct to do in public," the disgruntled blonde grumbled before being hastily pulled out of the path of a silk vendor's wagon. "Hey, watch where you're going!"

"Tow… towzoooOo…" Carly sounded out, "Is that the place we're looking for?" She pointed across the street at a quaint little corner store with thick red and gold banners draped over the windows. A copper statue of a heavyset Buddha sat outside of the entrance, his arms gesturing towards the door invitingly.

"It looks like it. Let's get inside before it starts pouring." Freddie held the maps atop of his head as he launched into a jog and made a beeline for the destination. The two girls ran after him, hand in hand, weaving back and forth as to avoid the puddles pooling on the cobblestone road. Freddie held open the creaky oak door for them as he stood aside and let them walk through first. As soon as Freddie let himself in and shut the door, the tinkling of a wind chime sounded and an elderly Chinese man with a braided white beard peered at the trio from behind a glass counter. He rose from his barstool and shakily gripping at his cane, left to his storeroom.

"Dal nah hoo say zong Gramps! I'm almost done!" The aroma of jasmine incense wafted through the air while tiny lights of flickering candles illuminated the tall aged shelves of the cozy emporium. From the stockroom door, a slender Asian girl looking just older than themselves traipsed out, shouldering a cardboard box full of long black bottles topped with green caps. She sported a purple tank top with a black mesh shirt over it, a khaki skirt, a pair of sandals and a mop of dreadlocks tucked underneath a striped beanie where a red and blue Obama patch had been sewn into it. Heavy eyeliner accented her eyes, making her look more abrasive than she otherwise would seem. "Oh 'sup, some white suburban kids. We don't get too many of you in here," she sociably expressed while kicking a small wooden ladder towards the shelves. Stepping onto a rung, she began filling the highest shelf with bottles of soy sauce, "Mostly just little old ladies stopping by to find an herbal remedy to make them look more youthful. I'm Michelle. What can I do for you?"

Carly had to let herself adapt to the newfangled appearance of the hipster stock girl in an otherwise very traditional looking market. Her silver lip-ring caught the light and distracted Carly momentarily. "Oh! We were hoping that you could tell us a little bit about this," she offered the caricature drawn napkin to her. "We were just curious, yes, full of curiosity, like cats! I mean… I really like cats and I heard that in China, they enjoy them too. Not that I'm suggesting anything about your culture and the way they treat cats, it's just… what I mean to say is that… no. No, we're not interested in buying any soup from you. Thank you."

A chuckle resonated as the girl cordially accepted the scrap of napkin. "You're joshing me right? Your friend's a trip." She winked her eye at Carly with a flirtatious smile. "Hm…" She pressed his lips together as she thoughtfully studied the sketch. "You're asking about Happy Giraffe cereal? Oh, no way man, we definitely don't carry the brand anymore."

"Why not?" Sam asked, her eyes roaming over the black dreadlocks approvingly.

"We could never sell it. Probably because of the rumors circulating. Old wives gossiping among themselves trying to find excitement and drama where they could. It's pretty tasty stuff too, but the parents who shop in this neighborhood refuse to buy it for their kids. My only complaint are the lame prizes that come with it. How many miniature figurines of giraffes does a kid really need?"

Freddie nodded to himself as he thumbed the whistle hanging around his neck. It was tucked underneath his tee shirt, hidden from view. "What kind of rumors are going around?"

Reaching on the bottom shelf, Michelle grabbed a price labeler before climbing back up and stamping the bottles. "Now this flies straight into sci-fi territory with just a dash of historical accuracy. They say that the weird sicknesses that the rare kid gets when they eat this stuff isn't accidental. It's this big government conspiracy. Have any of you heard of the Phantom Secret of the Third Reich?" Three heads shook no. "Well there's documentation somewhere, probably in a vault or something that details how the Nazi regiment in Germany dedicated a branch of their military scientists in trying to produce a serum they could disseminate to the soldiers to make them… super soldiers. Like to make their eyeballs shoot out lasers and have them blow things up with a thought and give them the powers to fly! "

"Were they ever successful?" Freddie self-consciously solicited.

"Not that anyone knows of… shoot, give me a second." Michelle frowned at her jammed label gun before picking up a small screwdriver from the shelf and tinkering with it. "Well, anyways, back to Happy Giraffe cereal. The whispers and rumbling is that the stuff wasn't manufactured for public consumption. Some people think that the recipe was originally the Chinese government's pursuit to create their own super soldiers and the formula must've been leaked to a clever businessman. I don't know though. Most kids with weak stomachs just eat it and get sick. I haven't seen any superheroes flying through this joint." At that, Sam, Freddie and Carly all gave awkward laughs.

"Ha.. Hahaha.. Ha." Freddie finished with a cough.

"Is there a bathroom around here?" Sam asked, fidgeting back and forth.

"And, we'll take three sodas," Carly added, making sure that they didn't seem rude for walking into a store, asking questions and not buying anything.

"Yeah, we have a co-ed restroom in the back, right through those double doors." Michelle pointed the way while climbing down the ladder to ring up the purchase.

"Freddie?" Carly appealed.

"Got it," he whipped out his wallet and took out a five dollar bill, already anticipating what he was being asked for. Carly shot a smile at him and ran after Sam through the double doors.

* * *

"So what do you think about what she said?" Carly asked Sam as they both washed their hands at adjacent sinks.

"I don't know if this is the right place to talk about it." Sam whispered, nudging at Carly, directing her toward a stall where feet could unmistakably be seen. Carly put a standstill to the conversation. Sam was right, there were only four stalls in this restroom and everyone was in pretty close quarters so secrecy couldn't be expected. Carly turned off the faucet and walked over to the hand blower, hitting the button with a clean elbow.

"We should hurry, Freddie's waiting for us outsi-" Just then, the stall door swung open and the arm of a brawny thug shot out, grabbing Carly and settling a knife underneath her chin. She whimpered in fear. He smiled in sick delight.

"Get off of her," Sam growled.

"Oh yeah, what are you gonna do about it?" he asked gruffly, amusement flashing in his eyes.

Sam came closer. She spoke loudly and enunciated her words clearly. "Get off of my friend. Let her go."

The thug shook his head. "Is this your business? I don't think so. Why don't you step aside sweetheart? The kid didn't ask for you." He tilted his head sideways and a smaller man stepped out behind her, his arms folded in typical tough-guy fashion.

Sam decided to protect her conscience by being absolutely clear about her intentions. "I'm warning you. I'll kick your ass if you don't leave immediately." They both guffawed at her.

"Alfonso, grab her," the big one instructed the smaller guy. When he reached for Sam's arm, she backhanded him hard against the side of his face, catching him by surprise. He staggered sideways. Sam kicked him hard in the chest and watched him slam into the hand-drying machine and slide to the floor. Alfonso was disappointingly easy to beat.

"Holy shit."

Sam turned her head to see the thug pointing at her with his knife, staring at her with astonishment. She talked enough. She went after him. He was holding the blade, which made her approach trickier. She didn't hesitate, though. "CARLY, DUCK!" As the brunette shrank out of the scene, he stood to confront her, as she gambled he would, and she grabbed the knife-wielding arm by the wrist and bent it sharply behind him. He fell on his knees. She got behind him and wrenched his other arm back to join the first, forcing him down so she could lodge her knee in his back.

He groaned in pain. The blade clattered to the ground. Carly backed off into the corner, shivering.

Sam let his arms go. Now that the blade was out of the way, she could give him some room. He literally howled as he turned on her. He raised his arm to punch her in the jaw but she caught it long before it landed and took the force of his own sloppy effort to flip him onto the linoleum. It was kind of a trademark move of hers. Effortless. Fairly graceful. Totally satisfying.

She backed up a few steps and let him get up. She hated herself for enjoying the violence, but she did. This jerk deserved anything she gave him and much more. He'd obviously spent too long believing that he could intimidate whoever he wanted. Let him remember this.

It was all he could do to get himself back on his feet. He staggered towards Sam, swinging at her. She clipped his jaw with her right fist. She broke his nose with her second. She wanted to leave him a memento. He screamed through the pain and picked her up by her arms, pinning her against the tiled wall. Fighting to get free, she drove her palm upwards against his chin and chopped him in the throat with her other hand.

Choking and struggling to breathe, he fell back. His eyes displayed real fear now. She recognizing the signs. Wild, darting eyes, rapid, shallow breaths. Sam took that as her cue to finish him. She arced her leg and landed a hard, fast blow with her heel to a calculated spot under his ear. As expected, he crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Sam knew he'd feel like he had been run over with a steamroller when he came through, but that he'd still be alive.

Suddenly Carly was shrieking. Sam heard movement behind her. Much closer than she was expecting. Before she could regroup, Alfonso appeared in the corner of her eye and shoved her hard in the back, sending her sprawling across the floor. Sam got up but he was barreling towards her. Sam turned, smashing his face in with a roundhouse kick so powerful, she was sure she knocked him out. But she rushed the kick and threw herself badly off balance. She lost her footing and her head came down hard against the corner of the porcelain sink.

"Sam!" Freddie shouted as he ran into the room. He picked her up and cradled her head against his chest. "Michelle's on the phone with the cops right now. Carly, you have to come help her." The brunette sat still, paralyzed with fear. "Carly! Snap out of it! Sam needs you!" Carly's eyes refocused and she crept closer, taking Freddie's place and hugging the blonde to herself.

"Can you heal her?" he calmly propositioned.

"I don't know how." Carly shakily admitted, tears streaming from her eyes. "S-S-Sam, are you okay?"

"Urgh, yeah, you wouldn't happen to have a couple bottles of Adlenol or Tyvil? Would you?" Sam hazily responded.

Carly let show a sad smile as she sniffled, "I'm sure we can find some. Besides your head, is anything else hurting?"

"I think Allison has a bruise."

"Who's Allison?" Freddie's brow furrowed. He got up to check the four stalls to see if there was someone else in the restroom.

"Allison is Sam's left boob."

"Really?" Freddie deadpanned.

"Yeah, Hattie is her right." Carly explained. Sam snickered at the bizarreness of the situation, before groaning. She just found out that laughing hurt her ribs right now.

"Girls name their boobs?"

"Mmmhm."

"What are yo-"

"Jennifer and Christina," Carly responded, cutting him off. "Jenny really likes to read where Christy is more into partying." Freddie shoved his hands in his pockets. He would never understand girls, he decided, but that would never stop him from fiercely loving his two best friends. As the trio waited for the cops to show up, Freddie warily kept his eyes on the two other unconscious bodies in the room. Sam drowsily told jokes to make her friends laugh while Carly stroked her fingers through Sam's hair, keeping her awake.

"Carly?"

"Hmmm?"

"Am I still getting my wontons?"

* * *

**Author's Note: Tell me what you think! This story came out really quick because of everyone's encouragement, I really appreciated it. ^_^ Thank you to SamAndFreddieIsSeddie, sockstar, cliche_catastrophe, and seddie-is-sexy for reviewing. I'm going to need a bit of help; in the iWant My Website Back episode, were the names of Nevel's lackeys Alfonso and Lorenzo or something completely different? And! Did everyone like what I did with their name suggestions? I only really needed one but because there were so many, I found myself feeling guilty if I couldn't work more of them into the story. Until next time, peace out. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

"Freddie, you show off, stop showing off!" Carly vivaciously narrowed her eyes at him as he strained to hold his focus. It had been a week since the incident at the Taozhou Bazaar and the studious boy had been slowly but surely mastering his new talents.

"Mwo! Kewp doin wrt yur doin. Aw wike irt!" Sam protested, her lips moving in an effort to speak around a mouthful of food. Sam chewed and swallowed, opening her mouth once more. "Fruit me!" At her command, a parade consisting of a green grape, a cubed piece of swiss cheese and a strawberry slice hovered above the kitchen counter and floated across the room, circling around Sam's golden curls in a playful dance before dropping into her mouth one by one. Sam moaned in pleasure, "Oh my god Freddie, how come I never realized before how studly and brilliant of a guy you are? We should totally date!"

Freddie's once focused expression cracked into a hopeful smile. "Really? Well I have next Thursday night ope-"

"Ew. Grody. No. You wish. That was like… a joke... a really bad one." Sam's face contorted in repulsion.

Freddie scowled at her in vexation, "Your face is like a joke… a really bad one." He toppled backwards as soon as the sofa pillow smacked into his cheek. "That's not funny Sam. SAM. NO. STOP IT. STOP IT SAM. IT'S NOT FUNNY."

Carly scooped up the plate of the remaining ingredients that hadn't been sent aflutter to Sam's mouth and poured it into her salad bowl, tossing it lightly. She added a spritz of orange vinaigrette and the brunette happily skipped to the couch that Sam was previously occupying. She used her knife to fold a romaine salad leaf over her fork, before daintily bringing it to her mouth.

"OH GAWD. OH GAWD SAM, I CAN'T BREAF." The blonde was straddling a suffocating Freddie who was gasping for air underneath a throw pillow.

Carly delicately chewed her dinner.

"I'M DYING SAM. I'M DYING." Freddie managed to squeak out as he briefly strong-armed the pillow out of his face. It was fastidiously forced back into place.

Carly studied her fingernails. She frowned slightly as she realized her nail polish was chipping off. She made a note to herself to repaint them later.

With a final shudder, Freddie's legs jerked and kicked once more before his body finally stopped moving. With a grin, Sam flopped herself onto the couch right next to Carly. She plucked a julienne piece of chicken from the brunette's bowl before throwing it up in the air and catching it in her rapturous jaws, biting and chewing the morsel like a shark in water.

"Should I begin penning his obituary? Fredward Benson, RIP, always fought the good fight. Hope for the cure for the common cold died as he did." Carly gave a somber speech.

"Or Fredward Benson, RIP, dating-age girls everywhere rejoiced when he croaked," she snickered. "Nah. He's just dozing." Sam clarified, "I put my sleephold on him."

"Mm." Carly looked behind the couch at the brown-haired boy who was sprawled out on the floor. She smiled. It was just like Sam to choke Freddie until he was comatose and still be thoughtful enough to slide the throw pillow underneath his head and tuck him in with the living room blanket. His soft snores quietly thrummed throughout the room while he peacefully slumbered.

"Hey." Sam whispered as she pulled Carly up from her seat. "Come up to the roof with me. I wanna show you something."

* * *

Sam nimbly harvested three soda cans from the blue recyclables bin and rapidly crumpled them together into a tight sphere the size of a golf-ball. She picked out three more cans and repeated the motion. Sparks flew out between her fingertips at the rate she was folding the metal in on each other until she finally had a nice collection of approximately twenty-two tin balls. The twenty-third ball, she couldn't use because it bursted into flames at the speed and strength the blonde had been manipulating it with. Sam paused to look out over the lighted view of Seattle before setting down the makeshift golf ball. She situated herself behind Carly, wrapping her arms around the slender girl, setting her arms and legs straight before backing off to let her swing.

"Sam, about what happened last week…" Carly swung at the ball, smacking it a pitiful twenty feet over the side of Bushman Plaza. "I don't want you taking that kind of risk again. It's not safe out there. You're not always going to get so lucky."

Sam took the golf club from her and eased into a batting stance easily. She hit a drive with all her might and watched as it cut through the night sky, sparkling briefly in the moonlight before it faded from her vision. "How far do you think that went? About seven miles?"

The brunette sighed. "Don't change the subject. I'm serious, haven't you heard about the stuff that's been in the news lately. Like the masked robbers who've been holding up gas stations and burglarizing pawn shops? You're not invincible Puckett, no matter how strong and fast you are, you still bleed and bruise and get sick, just like the rest of us."

"Carly… I wasn't about to let that creep hurt you. End of story. Nobody touches me, my friends, my family or my food." Sam announced, very matter of factly.

Carly's strong resolve softened as she sensed the protectiveness in her friend's voice. Sam's headstrong attitude was one of the things that frustrated Carly the most about the shorter woman. But ironically, it was also the quality that the brunette found most endearing. "Okay, then I guess I should say thank you again for saving my life."

"Yup, that's twice this week cupcake, I betta be gettin' paid soon. Heroism doesn't just grow on trees you know." The fighter greedily submitted.

"It grows on a tree named Sam." Carly pecked her blonde friend on the cheek as she pulled the golf club away from her hand. "I had twenty bucks in my purse this morning and I know you already stole it, so I consider that ample payment."

"How did you know?" Sam defensively cried out.

"HELLO. Mind reader? You broadcasted it loud and clear while you were in the middle of committing the crime, Sam." Carly swung at her second ball this time with more determination. It flew twice as far as it did before, landing with three bounces on the roof of a lower building.

"See, I don't like your power. It's evil and unfair." Sam grabbed a handful of cans, twisting and molding them together like paper mache to form a pointy tin hat. She placed it on top of her blonde head defiantly. _Gotta protect my brain. Gotta protect my brain. My brain is my brain, not your brain, so leave it alooonee._

"Not entirely." Carly assertively argued, "I don't really like to use it. You might not think so but I'm into respecting people's privacy. Especially yours, I know how much it means to you."

"Uh huh, sure you are." Sam quipped, not even pretending as though she believed the girl she was standing next to. Sam knew that if she had been in Carly's place, she'd be camped outside every ATM machine stealing passwords and rollin' in the Benjamins.

"It's true. How long have we been friends? You know I can tell when you're keeping something from me. Especially when Freddie's around us, I can sense you're closing something off about yourself. I haven't been prying though. I care too much about our friendship." Carly said before taking a third swing. She missed. Completely. The tin ball wavered back and forth as though it was teasing her for her error. "It's funny because my friendship with Freddie seems to be the complete opposite than you and I. I don't feel like he has any walls. Freddie's an open book with me. I actually... I haven't told either of you yet but I think… my empathy skill is expanding."

"What do you mean?" Sam curiously asked as she used her toe to nudge Carly's feet apart, correcting her stance.

"Well, the other day, Freddie was working on his homework in the living room when I was trying to come up with more iCarly skits with my note cards and then… I felt it."

"Felt what? The realization that we are friends with the geekiest boy alive, next to Stephen Hawking?" Sam sneered.

"Play nice." Carly chastised. "No. I felt how much Freddie wanted to ace this class of his. I felt the pressure he was put under to perform, to be a good student, a good son, how hard he worked to make sure he didn't disappoint anyone, including himself. I understood how much he wanted to make his mother proud, how in the back of his mind, he was thinking about her. I don't think he's a boy anymore Sam, he's grown up to be just this really great, mature, nice guy. I mean… I FELT that Sam, in my core. How is that possible? I just looked into his eyes and it all came at me at once."

Sam's stomach sank and she felt like she had a frog caught in her throat. "Um.. I… I don't know Carly. I mean, I guess I never really took the time out to see him like you do." Sam didn't want to try to explain her confused feelings.

Carly smiled at her friend warmly. "I know you and Freddie have always been at odds, arch-enemies and all, but sometimes you should lay off him a bit, you know?"

Sam decided to change the subject, "Oooh! Carly look." Sam grabbed the golf club from her and pointed its handle towards the night sky. "It's a shooting star! Let's make a wish!" Sam closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, looking hopeful.

Carly's gaze searched upwards before returning back to match the gaze of her best friend. "…That's a plane Sam."

"Oh."

Carly and Sam both fell down laughing and spent the rest of the night trading secrets, wishing on planes and hitting tin golf balls off the windy rooftop of the Bushwell apartment building. No two girls in Seattle could ever be happier. Freddie also had a very pleasant sleep that night. He dreamt about assembling electronic circuitry.

* * *

Cal walked through the streets of Chinatown returning from his interview with the Asian family who owned and managed the Taozhou Bazaar. The police reports had been clear enough about what had happened. Three kids had found two criminals who were planning to burglarize the store after closing. They had an altercation and they were able to fight off the thugs. It wasn't in Cal's nature to underestimate people but it still didn't click with him how these three kids managed to leave with barely a scratch while the two men appeared to have been beaten to a bloody pulp. Something strange was going on and he intended to get to the bottom of it.

Cal kicked a pebble down the sidewalk and thought about the last time he had seen Seattle. He had been sitting in a smoothie shop with his four young friends and their teacher before the local cops recognized him and chased him out of the store. He remembered running until his legs ached, until his lungs gave out. The sleeve of his cardigan had torn on a metal wire as he jumped a fence and flung himself into a dumpster. The garbage reeked but he held his breath and desperately tried to keep in a wheeze, was determined to not give himself away with a sound. He had thought that he was home free when the cops' flashlights passed over him. It wasn't until he felt his collar being roughly grabbed that he knew he had been caught.

He had sat in a jail for two weeks seething. He was only twenty-four years old, how did he end up here? _Those ignorant fools. Couldn't they see? Nuclear power was the wave of the future. So what if there was toxicity and pollution? So what if the energy harnessed was utilized by angry rogue countries to make bombs and start wars that spread chaos and suffering? So what if people died by the millions? IT IS A NECCESSITY. Society as a whole advanced when the masses lived in agony. This was the ultimate universal truth. In World War II, as millions died, technological innovation thrived and brilliant minds wept in celebration. How many things had been invented and discovered within thirty years? Aircraft, sonar, submarines, satellites, digital technology, space travel, radar, microwaves, fuel cells, surgical technology, vacuum tubes, flamethrowers, synthetic rubber, rifle scopes, Velcro, the invention of Penicillin to treat bacteria and wounds! Scientific knowledge flourished! In two thousand years of peace, what was it that Switzerland contributed to the world? Nothing but a cuckoo clock and a bar of chocolate._

When Cal had finally been taken from his holding cell and escorted to the interrogation room, he was sat down to face two stern looking FBI agents. He was sure that they were going to threaten him, to beat him, to put him on criminal trial for being a domestic terrorist. He never expected what was about to happen.

"Am I hearing this correctly?" His restless leg syndrome kicked in as the fugitive processed their offer. "I agree to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigations as one of their agents and my criminal history is wiped clean? I become a free man?" He slumped back in his chair in shock. The handcuffs grated harshly at his wrists.

"Be grateful that someone at the top thinks you're a genius Calvin Zimmerman. Apparently, we'd rather work with you than imprison you," the gruff voice of the dark-skinned man puffed in his ear.

"Yeah… okay, I agree. Where do I sign?" That was the day Cal, the misunderstood, prodigal, Ivy League drop-out, fugitive transformed into government scientist and FBI Agent Calvin Zimmerman, armed and equipped with a license to kill.

He rattled his dark trench-coat, trying to shake off the night chills. He couldn't afford to waste time reminiscing right now. He had a mission he was assigned to. _An anti-gravity device…_ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he inspected the black and white screenshot photo in his hand. He didn't know who it was that anonymously tipped off the FBI about this new piece of technology but he owed this stranger a handshake. _I'm taking this machine and I'll shoot whoever tries to stop me._

He stepped out into the curbside and raised his hand up, hailing a cab. He caught the eye of a driver and the yellow, checker-striped car pulled up in front of him. Cal opened the door and ducked into the vehicle, tilting the rim of his fedora hat down to avoid eye-contact. He gave the driver directions to return him back to his hotel. As the taxi-cab signaled and merged back into traffic, a tin ball fell out of the sky and cracked the windshield, startling both cabby and passenger.

* * *

"I was having all this trouble controlling my powers before because I didn't know how it worked." Freddie explained to Carly as he sat on a bean-bag chair facing her. "But now I do. I mean… when I do it, it looks like I'm picking something up, but that's not it at all. How do I explain it…" He looked around at the iCarly studio and admired how considerably cleaner it was compared to what it had been the last time he'd seen it, wrecked to bits. There were still holes in the walls with objects taped to it, but at least the floors were tidy. "I think we need a demonstration."

Carly picked up a nearby stuffed animal. It was a teddy bear dressed in a Navy uniform her father had given to her for her fifth birthday. "Admiral Fluffles would like to fly." She set it in front of him. "The Admiral would also like Sam and Spencer to be back from the Groovy Smoothie with our shakes too, 'cause his cottony insides are feeling kinda empty." Carly frowned, patting at her own lean belly.

Freddie gifted Carly with a shy smile, "I've got a better idea."

Carly receptively tilted her ear to him, "You think we should lock them both out of the apartment for being sluggish snail-turtle-sloths?"

Freddie walked over to the stereo and switched it on, flipping through a number of radio stations before settling on some calming jazz music. He dimmed the lights with his mind, pulling the dial down. "Nope, why should Admiral Fluffles have all the fun when I can help you fly?" he asked, stepping closer to Carly.

"Me?" Carly brought her hand up to her chest. As soon as she did, she and Freddie shot into the air, their feet leaving the ground. Reflexively, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held onto him, panicked at the new experience. It felt like she was walking on water, her feet intuitively searched for a hard surface to push against.

"Easy, I've got you." Freddie chuckled as he held her close. He continued his lesson, "I'm not technically… doing anything to us. I'm just affecting the gravity around us. I just focused on a point in the space above us and willed it to become… heavy, kind of like a very weak black hole."

"I can push," Freddie described. Carly's body, suspended in air began to drift away from him. "I can pull…" She grinned, enjoying the ride as she floated back to him. "And… a few other things, I can dissipate gravity entirely." Everything around them began hovering upwards. "But that would be bad." At his words, the room settled back down.

"May I have this dance?" Freddie requested with a smile, holding his arm out to Carly.

"Yes you may." Carly gave him her hand and let herself be pulled against him. She looped her arms around him and he set his hands on the small of her back. Their bodies swayed together mid-air, circling slowly around the room. Carly looked at him in deep consideration, pursing her lips. She didn't know if it was just good lighting or something else entirely but Freddie looked… kind of handsome actually. His hair was swept to the side looking soft and feathery and not realizing what she was doing until she had done it, she ran her fingers through it.

The corner of his lips creased into a sheepish smile. He stirred closer, tilting his head and nuzzled his cheek against hers affectionately. "Carly, it's always been so easy to love you." He humbly admitted.

Carly's body froze. She didn't quite know how to respond to that. Freddie had always insisted that he was in love with her before, but she always took it as a jest. They were kids, they played house, they didn't know any better. But… the three of them were beginning to grow up now. They would soon be adults partaking in adult relationships. They way he just said it as he held her, his voice was so sure of it. It was so convincing. "Is something wrong?" His eyes hinted at worry as he looked at her.

"No…no, nothing's the matter Freddie. I'm just… I'm very flattered." She gave him a forced smile as she wrestled internally with her feelings. _Love._ Carly thought. _Could it be?_

* * *

Sam stared wistfully at the floating, dancing couple from the hallway, smoothies in tow. _Don't be stupid Sam… You knew this was going to happen. You've seen the movies. The good guy always wants the good girl. They ALWAYS end up together. There's no story where an aggressive, maladjusted, seclusive juvenile delinquent like you gets a happy ending. You thought you had a chance? Not in this life. _Sam set down the tray of smoothies in the middle of the hallway and ran off, fighting back her tears.

* * *

Carly's eyebrows knotted together. Something felt wrong. Really really wrong. Her stomach dropped and she was feeling… heartbreak. Why would she be feeling heartbreak? She began breathing heavily, it was suddenly difficult to take in a full breath of air. This was perplexing. Something told her to look up and her eyes automatically went to the glass door to see if anyone was there. Not a soul.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you to ThePhantomHokage, RazzleDazzy and Shanny997 for your enthusiastic reviews. So, this chapter was mostly about setting up the love-triangle, explaining Freddie's powers further and introducing the villain of the story. I've already decided who the final pairing will be so you can stop campaigning. ^_^ I also need to mention that I find it so... strange how passionate you all are about the Seddie/Creddie couples you rep for. I'll end up alienating half of you regardless of which direction I go and there are a dozen new romance fluff stories every week about your prospective shippings so I don't know how big of a deal you should make of mine. This will not be OT3. As sockstar asked about, yes, eventually you'll see Freddie, "tear shit up with his mind powers." His real action is a few chapters away though because of the romance subplot implementation. I... I hate writing romance but it seems that it's what all the fans want so I will deliver.**

**I'm very happy with my following right now. I'll be responding to every PM I recieve and as always, as long as you keep reviewing, my fingers will keep clicking to bring you more chapters.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning: Intense Profanity Ahead. My portrayal of Griffin is much grittier than Nickelodeon's clean-cut, boy band version.**

* * *

It stared her in the face as though challenging her to steal it and burn it. Sam's slumped body rocked back and forth in turbulence on the weathered green seat of the city's monorail train. Sam intently fixed her steely blue eyes at the insipid poster behind the plastic casing. There were colorful ads displayed all over the walls of the public transportation caravan; hemorrhoid ointments, burger joints, blood-donation facilities, teeth whitening pastes, realtors, pimple cream… and the only seat open on the crowded convoy had to be in front of the latest romantic movie poster coming to theatres near you. A sadistic unknown force had to be messing with her.

She hated the smile of the teenage girl shown, with her lustrous hair and unmarred skin fawning over her cute, dimpled football player. She was merrily tossing over her shoulder a Polaroid photo of a similar looking girl who had frizzier hair and glasses. By the looks of it, it was the obvious, vapid, transformative teen movie where an unattractive girl with an amiable personality would be awarded a skin-deep makeover and… oh my gosh, so unexpectedly, gains the attention of the popular boy she'd been lusting over for so many years to finally capture his heart. It was shallow in every sense of the word and the lesson of the story, typical and uninspiring. It pissed her off that girls were expected to fit such an unattainable mold to find appreciation.

Sam's fingers ached for the comforting feeling of a cold, steel spray can; her ears yearned for the soothing sound of the clacking from the hollow ball inside. Without it, she would just have to resort to other means of defacing the placard. She weighed her options carefully. Spit was always the go-to, convenient choice, smearing across the brightly lit pane expressing all of its abhorrence. Sam could make it a sticky one too. Rather than sliding off and hitting the floor, it would dry and stay there for days, even weeks, carrying her message of revulsion across time.

But communicating disgust was not enough. This poster was promoting delusional expectations, it was hazardous! She couldn't stand by and do nothing. The guilt would eat her up alive if she exited the train with such an inadequate act. No. This heinous, unforgivable level of offense required fire and lots of it. She pulled a lighter out of her back pocket and flicked it open, circling her pinkie finger in the flame while she rationalized her behavior. After all, this was a government owned facility. That meant that it belonged to the people, the citizens of the state right? She was a citizen of the state! Yes, it made perfect sense to Sam. Part of this train belonged to her, albeit a very small part, but nonetheless! As a property owner, she had rights too.

Sam's eyes darted around the car. _Lot of witnesses... _She began to have doubts. She cursed under her breath as fate dealt her another blow. There was an off-hours officer reading a newspaper, sitting at the other end of the car. She wished she had packed a powdered doughnut to throw down the aisle and distract him with.

"Seventy-seventh street!" a voice blared over the loudspeakers. Urgh, this was her stop. _No way… It's too late._ Getting that poster out of the frame would mean flexing her muscles, which would mean revealing her very abnormal strength to a brunch of strangers, which was about as appealing as eating boiled cabbage for breakfast. On the other hand… she always did like a challenge.

The train lurched to a halt.

She could do this. It was now or never. She tucked her lighter into the wrist of her sleeve.

The doors hissed open.

Before her thoughts were even fully formed, she sprang from her seat and grabbed one of the metro poles, swinging herself around and using her momentum to deliver a lightning-fast snap kick. Her leg lashed upward in a blur. The people at the door gasped. The tip of her sneaker struck the plastic with such precision that the entire plate instantly shattered.

In her mind, she was performing a public service by destroying this false advertising. Well… maybe not. Maybe she was just having a bad day. But it was too late to second-guess herself. She swiped the crumpled poster from its frame, tearing it in half in the process.

"Hey!" a gruff male voice barked, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Yup, just as expected, the pudgy cop with coffee stains on his blue uniform ran towards her. But he posed no problem. He looked like a big round bowling ball knocking down pins left and right as he tried to navigate through the crowd of passengers. She however, a freaking ninja, was already using the remaining force of her movement to propel her out the door.

"Freeze!" the cop cried. His face reddened. "You there! Don't move-"

The doors slid shut, silencing him.

He was still yelling and gesturing frantically but Sam knew there was nothing he could do. The train was pulling away from the station. The piercing shriek of the wheels drowned out any other noise. Watching him was like watching a movie with the sound turned off. With a miserable half-smile, Sam waved at him while standing at the platform. She figured she'd be polite for once in her life.

Within seconds, he was gone.

She looked around the metro station. Several onlookers were glaring at her. _Time to haul ass out of here before one of them calls another cop…_ She whipped out her lighter and did the deed, feeling the tiniest twinge of satisfaction as she tossed the burning, black, curling paper onto the concrete floor. She hurtled through the turnstiles and dashed upstairs into the cold Seattle night. What was left in her dust was a flaming poster of the latest cinematic romance feature turning to ashes.

* * *

"Yo Puckett!" Griffin's voice sounded from underneath the rusty automobile he was working on as she dragged her feet through his garage, "What's the latest?"

"Do you want to have sex with me?" Sam gloomily invited.

The metallic clang of a pipe rang out accompanied by the sharp, wounded call of a mechanic in pain. "OUCH! Damn. What did you say?"

"Do. You. Want. To. Have. Sex. With. Me." She looked at him sullenly, her eyes swimming in desolation.

"Where is this coming from?" Griffin asked, sliding out from underneath the car and wiping his grease-stained hands on a tattered rag. His left eye had a ring of oil surrounding it and Sam briefly wondered if his mother was a raccoon. His eagerness floundered as he caught sight of her. His ex-girlfriend wasn't carrying herself the way she usually did, proud and full of life. She looked unusually pale and fragile tonight, as though she would fall over and shatter like glass at the instance of wind.

"Offer expires in five… four…" Her slender fingers ticked off a running countdown.

"Now hold on a second," the tall brunette stepped closer to Sam, looming over her like a stony gargoyle. He placed his hand on her chin and tilted it up towards him, searching her eyes for clues.

"Three." She disinterestedly continued.

"Sam, tell me what's going o-"

"Two."

"HEY. KNOCK IT OFF SAM." Griffin's voice escalated in anger, his neck muscles bulging and contracting as he shouted at her. "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BULLY ME INTO FUCKING YOU." He sucked in a deep breath as he endeavored to rein in his anger. "This is the reason I don't know how to be around you for more than two hours at a time! When you're on the rag and you pull some crazy stunt like this without letting me in on the know!"

She shrugged her shoulders aimlessly. "I'm just doing you a favor, Griff. I know you want to. You've always wanted to. Well, the carnival's open. One night only. And you've been selected to win a single rider ticket." Her voice was lifeless as she hopped up and parked herself down on his workbench. Her eyes scanned the dirty warehouse. "It's not so bad. Not exactly Paris in the springtime, but I could do worst."

"Goddamn it, Puckett." The engine jockey picked up a spare wrench, throwing it at the wall in frustration. "You're a walking brain aneurysm! I know your M.O. has always been to be a callous bitch, but do you really have to talk about it that way? Try a little tenderness for once, huh?"

"WHY? What's the point? I'm not soft and I'm not sweet and trying to be is harder than calculus and I can barely count past my fingers and toes! I'm not a Carly Shay! I'm never going to be on the same level as Carly Shay. She's just… She's always going to be better than me. " Sam admitted in resignation.

"Hey. I might be nothin' more than a greased up knucklehead, but I know you Sam. I know you cause you're just like me and you're hurting really bad right now. I wish I could tear my eyeballs from their sockets and hand 'em over to you 'cause you've always been the baddest, hottest, most capricious girl I've ever met in my life. And you're absolutely right. I've always wanted you. But not like this… Never like this." Griffin picked up a pack of cigarettes, shaking one out and placing the tip in between his lips. He needed to calm his nerves. "If I was just a little bit more of a jackass, I would've jumped at it though." His hands dug into his pockets looking for a match.

Before he found it, a source of tinder was held out for him. Sam offered her lighter in kindness. He leaned carefully into the fire, making sure the oil on his hands stayed far away from it. It caught his cigarette and he sucked in, sighing in relief as the stress ebbed from him. "You okay?"

"Yeah... yeah, I'm much better. " Sam nodded, surprised herself to find that she wasn't lying

"We don't have to do it tonight if you ain't feelin' up to it," he said brutishly, taking in another puff.

"No, I want to," Sam responded. "I've almost got enough, just one more and I can stop."

Griffin smiled at her, "That's my girl. Chin up soldier." He walked to a clothing dryer that was chugging away at the corner of the garage and opened up the lateral door. Pulling out a black long sleeved shirt, black yoga pants and a black ski-mask, he threw it over to Sam who caught it with deft hands. "Warm, just how you like it babe."

* * *

"You are not color-blind!" Carly put her hands on her hips. Freddie and Carly were still sitting in their beanbag chairs in the filming studio and they decided to play a game. The fair-minded girl was sure that her tech producer was cheating though and she was planning on calling him out for it.

Freddie frowned while crossing his arms, "I think I would be the one to know."

Carly stared at him. Her hands slipped from her waist, flopping at her sides. "Seriously? You're color-blind?"

"Yeah… why do you think my mom picks out my clothes for me? I can see most colors, I just can't tell my reds from my greens. She's so overbearing because she feels responsible for it. Even though she sees perfectly, her family's side is the carrier of the flawed gene. I mean, girls are really lucky that way. Colorblindness is determined by the X gene and so if a girl has one faulty gene then she has a second X to make up for it. But because guys have X and Y, when they found out my X gene had the colorblind allele on it, I was out of luck. It's not a big deal. A lot of the Benson men had it."

"It's just that you've never told me," she confronted him.

"Yeah, well you don't need to worry. You can't catch it." Freddie smirked, "And that's why we're doing this now. I tell you something I've never told anyone else before and you do the same, right?"

Carly stayed silent as she ogled Freddie's eyes, studying them, not sure what she was looking for. Freddie's eyes didn't look color-blind. They looked… well… like regular, everyday eyes. Could he really not be able to tell red from green? "Please, by all means Carly, keep staring at me like that. It does wonders for my self esteem."

"So you were born that way… did you ever wish you weren't?"

Freddie nodded. "Well sure. There was a pretty ugly incident involving hot sauce a few years back." He grimaced at the memory. "But most of those taste buds grew back. Eventually." He scratched the back of his neck. "I've pretty much given up on spicy. It's just not for me. I like.. Um… I've decisively chosen to stick with sweeter substances." Freddie grinned at her as though he was trying to tell her something.

Carly opened her mouth to respond but as soon as she did, she was interrupted by Spencer barging in while clutching his cell phone. "I NEED A HUG FROM MY LITTLE SISTER." He exclaimed distressingly and lifted her up off the floor, clamping her arms to her side so she couldn't hug him back. Her feet dangled in the air helplessly.

"What's the matter Spencer?" She asked cautiously. If her older brother was caught up in some wacky scheme or adventure again, she wanted no part of it.

"The guy from the art gallery just called me. He's been trying to get a hold of me for two days! His art gallery was broken into! All the money he had in his safe disappeared and my Peanut Putter sculpture was taken apart and stolen! I worked on that thing for like three weeks…" Spencer frowned like a boy who had lost his puppy. "I'm so sad."

"Peanut putter?" Carly repeated, a little confused. Peanut… putter… why did it seem so familiar? "Wait, what specifically did they take?"

"My four-iron golf club! It was the special one that Sasha Striker gave to me for my birthday. She had it engraved and everything." As soon as he said, 'golf club,' Carly's mind flooded with the memories of the night before. _Oh no. _Sam's smile. A tin ball shooting off the building. A jet plane. A nearly unnoticeable stickiness on a lower section of the handle…

"Stay here!" Carly cried out as she ran to the elevator. Two minutes later, when she returned, she held something silvery and very familiar in her hands.

"What's that? You went out and bought me another four-iron?" Spencer asked. Carly shook her head briskly, she held the golf club out in front of him and rotated it. On the side of the rod, as the light hit it, an inscription shone through, reading, 'For Spencer, try to beat my record in this punk! From S.S.'

"Where'd you get it?" Spencer prompted dazedly.

"Sam had it…"

"Where is she now?" Freddie demanded of Carly's lanky, older brother.

"I don't know. I thought she was with you guys. We came back a while ago from the Groovy Smoothie." Spencer informed them plaintively.

All three brunettes stared at each other, a heavy silence settling like a blanket on top of them. Without a word, Carly grabbed her jacket from the coat rack and began marching towards the stairs. "Hey, where are you going?" Spencer asked worriedly.

"I'm going to find Sam." Carly declared, not looking back. _Please be safe Puckett._

* * *

**Author's Note: Phew. That foreshadowing I planted in Chapter 2 finally paid off. That only took... a month and a a half. Mostly, I'd like to know what you all think of Griffin. Thank you to sockie and skandarfan for being new reviewers. A new chapter = 2 to 6 hours of work. A new review = Priceless. ^_^**

**Addition: Because some were concerned, I need to clarify why my story which was previously labelled Sam/Freddie has been switched to Carly/Freddie. It's current status is in no way reliable in conveying to you what the final couple will be. It will switch back and forth and is only the status quo of the last written romantic chapter. This story is a love triangle and in being so, it WILL inflict pain. Conflict is the lifeblood of resolution. I don't believe in instant gratification. If you're choosing to abandon my story because it does not serve your pairing and you can't handle the suspense, then obviously my writing was never meant for you. Good luck. :)**


	8. Chapter 8

"So scratchy. Feels like spiders are crawling all over my face."

"Wanna trade?" a throaty voice sounded from behind her.

"Heck yes. Ugh. I wish I could just burglarize in the nude," Sam bemoaned.

"Well, I wouldn't be so opposed to that," a hushed snicker sounded from the dark figure. Ignoring the remark, Sam pulled off her ski mask, unleashing her wild blonde mane before handing it off to Griffin. He in turn passed to her a simple black, cotton, ski cap which she drew over her head, making sure that every strand of her ponytailed hair was strategically tucked underneath. From experience, Sam knew that the number one rule to criminal behavior was to hide one's most distinguishing feature. The number two rule, to burn all of the evidence and deny, deny, deny.

Griffin's masked face popped up over her shoulder. "Okay babe, I'm ready when you are." He dropped to a knee and took a deep bow, the palms of his hands set against the gravel road.

Taking a step back, Sam ran towards the wall at full speed. Her legs changed direction as she hit the vertically-sloped bricks and her cat-like frame went upwards with it. Flipping over gracefully, she landed on top of Griffin's flat black, her knees bending into a full compact squat before she used her momentum to spring forward and catch the tall ledge of the level rooftop. Her gloved hands caught at a gutter that creaked at her weight. She looked down at the three floor drop… She'd rather not fall tonight, thankyouverymuch. _Mama eats pancakes, she doesn't become one._ Adjusting her hands accordingly, she moved her arms, hitching herself by the nailed down points of the pipe rather the sagging middle. Using her legs to swing back and forth, she pushed her thighs extra hard behind her and folded her knees into a somersault backwards onto the rooftop.

That familiar buzz of adrenaline kicked in as the cool night air dried the sweat of exertion from her forehead. Her lips curved in a self satisfied smile of accomplishment. The blonde desperado decided that she had an affinity for high places. She loved the wind, the view, the sweet silence of solitarity. _Maybe I was a bird in a past life._

"Hey!" a whispered delivery came from below, "What's the hold up?" She rolled her eyes. It was nice while it lasted. Sam unsnapped a pocket of her utility belt and pulled out a black cable, unrolling it from its reel and dropping it over the side of the building. She ran to the other side of the roof and laid down, digging her heels into the shingles. A confirming CLICK of a switch and the cord locked in place.

Down around the back of the building, Griffin took a hold of the black rope and tugged lightly, checking its tautness. Satisfied that Sam was in location, he pulled out a steel block and tackle with his left hand and clipped it to the rope. With his right hand, he whipped out a twin grip and began pulling himself up the wire, his biceps and triceps making quick work of the three stories as his legs propelled him forward.

Reaching the top of the roof, he staggered a bit towards his partner his crime, his legs burning. Sam looked at him with questioning eyes and a teasing grin, "Really? It was that hard huh? Looks like someone needs to hit the treadmill."

"Hey… you hook me up with some of that magic cereal and we'll talk stamina." Griffin sniped back with, a little bashful at his fatigue. "Now where's that's skylight window?" Sam walked ten paces south and finding the reflective surface, crouched down to examine it.

"This'll be quick," she smirked, staring at the poor craftsmanship of the window and locks. The opening was approximately four-by-four feet. There were three thick padlocked bolts keeping the shatterproof window closed. "So amateur," Sam criticized. Instead of tackling the padlocks, the blonde took a screwdriver handle from her utility belt, twisted the right size screw bit into the socket and went to work on the hinges. Within minutes, she took them apart, opening the window and folding it back onto its padlocked bolts. This was as easy as stealing candy from a baby. But they weren't finished yet, three iron rods ran along the porthole, barring entry.

Griffin pulled a handheld torch from his cargo pocket and unchained it from his belt buckle. Sparks flew as he melted the middle point of the metal rod to malleability. The iron glowed a warm orange and Sam pushed it and pulled on it, bending it back and forth until it snapped. The same routine was repeated for a second bar and as it broke off, the hole proved to be plenty of room for both of them to jump through, one at a time.

Sam leaped down and found herself in the stockroom of a humble jewelry parlor surrounded by little cardboard trays of semi-precious stones and small scraps of flaked gold waiting to be remolded. Three one-by-one foot steel safes sat in the far corner of the room and Sam moved to it quickly, her hands and ears trained to get at the ungettable. The taller boy looked down through the portal, waiting for her to clear before coming down after her. He jumped down and rolled once into a standing posture to muzzle the sound of his heavy footsteps hitting the ground. He immediately unzipped his backpack and grabbed at everything shiny he could spot while Sam spent her time breaking open the challenging safe.

"Mmmm, c'mon baby, open for Mama." Sam kissed the safe for good luck before pressing her ear against its door and delicately rotating the dial rightwards with her gloved hand. In seconds, she heard the soft sharp echo of metal grating and locking against metal. A wide smile broke out onto the blonde's face reaching from ear to ear. She began swiveling the dial counterclockwise.

_Click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click creeak._

Better than ham, better than Persian chocolates, better than a moderately cute boy rubbing her feet with lotion, better than a personal hired Singaporean chef was the sound of a nearly cracked safe gracing her earlobe. _Just one more… _and the resonance of clicking began once again. By now, Griffin had snatched everything foundable by the naked eye and was now rustling through cabinets and drawers looking for more. He knew better than to disturb Sam when she was in the middle of her craft. She trusted him to do his part without error. Neither of them paid much attention to each other. If they had, maybe the blonde would've noticed and been able to tell her counterpart that he was making far too much noise.

The safe door popped open and Sam thought that she might fall over. The duo had recently hit gas stations and pawn shops a couple dozen miles out of town but they had never ventured into anything so superior as a jewelry parlor before. The risks were elevated, but the incentive was much greater. Wrapped green bills stacked nicely on top of each other in the small compartment. There had to be at least fifteen thousand dollars in there. Sam opened up her pack and began robotically filling it up to the brim. She had to convince herself it was nothing more than paper monopoly money to stop herself from squealing.

"Stop wut yer doing and put dem hands up!" a voice demanded behind her. Sam groaned.

"Griffin, stop playing around."

"It's not me… um, Dorothy."

Sam's pale aqua eyes shot to her left. Griffin was standing next to her, his hands held up in surrender. His eyes communicated complete seriousness. She slowly turned around.

"I'ma need you to toss that there bag o'er here and git on the ground." The broguish security guard intoned, his country accent heavy with warning.

Sam studied him. He was younger, she was guessing in his twenties. The tie to his uniform was askew and his forehead was heavy with nervous sweat. "And if I don't?" she briefly flirted with him as she looped her arms through her backpack straps.

"Then I'ma have to shoot you en I wuzn't trained to maim Ma'am, I wuz trained to kill." His hands betrayed his words by quivering as he held the gun at her. She knew what this was. He was inexperienced, out of his element. It was a complete bluff.

"I'm thinking you've never shot at anyone your entire life," she wagered beguilingly. Sam gave him a chesire wink, "If you had, you'd know that your safety was on." She reached out in front of herself and pushed at his index finger, pressing the trigger three times in a row. The chamber refusing to revolve signalled that there was no way a bullet was coming out anytime soon.

"Ah.. Ah knew dat." He furrowed his brow before using his thumb to flick back the safety gear. Before he could pull the trigger, Sam reached out and snapped the safety back on.

The trigger resisted the security guard's finger.

The man's eyes went wide with surprise. His mouth opened and he worked at a syllable. His thumb stretched out to flip the safety off.

_Oh no, dangerous territory. _Sam reached out and flipped the safety back on.

"Hay! Stop it," the guard said in a plaintative voice. He flicked the safety back off.

She flicked it back on.

He switched the safety back off and shot at her, but right in the midst of the two actions, her hands quickly switched it back on. He looked at her in resentment. Ooh, she was pushing some buttons now.

He turned the safety off, but couldn't shoot before Sam turned it back on. He growled and fended Sam's fingers off with his thumb, flipping the safety off for the final time.

"Ha!" he laughed triumphantly.

In a blur, Sam wrenched the gun from him, emptied the five bullets from their chambers, bent the cannon at a right angle so that the barrel now shot upwards and handed it back to him, safety off. A honeyed eyebrow rose challengingly as she bent down along her leg to tuck the bullets safely away in her sock. "Got a Plan B?"

As expected, he threw the revolver down and swung at her in fury. Sam grabbed his right arm in mid-swing with her left and pulling down on it, used her right hand to grab the back of his skull, driving his head downwards into her upwards-launching knee. CRACK and he was out for good.

"Let's take off!" Griffin urged. "He's got backup coming!" Police sirens began to wail making the boy's words evident. Griffin flew past Sam, his arm hooking around her and spinning her a full 180 degrees into a sprint. As the boy leaped down the stairs, Sam jumped onto the handrail, surfing on the slippery middle surface of her shoes to gracefully catch up with her ride. They smashed through a back window and clambered out, tripping a laser alarm in the process. It didn't matter. The cops already knew they were there. Griffin jumped onto his motorcycle and pulled around for Sam to straddle it behind him. She wrapped her arms around the boy and his full backpack for dear life as he skidded out, skillfully eluding the sight of two police vehicles as he revved down the opposite direction of the back street.

"Watch out!" A shriek came from behind Griffin as he swerved around a moving truck that veered to avoid them. Sam began laughing at the biker's formidable driving. They had gotten away with it.

_Mmmmm,_ Sam luxuriated at the rush. The thrill of being bad was undeniable. This had been a lot of fun. More fun than she would have expected. Best of all, her real life... the one filled with loneliness and rejection and uncertainty... seemed very, very far away.

* * *

Freddie and Carly were walking the streets looking for Sam when Freddie's eye caught sight of Griffin's motorcycle speeding past them, a block away. He chalked it up to a random motorist, never having known Griffin too well himself. Carly could have sworn she smelled the gas before she even heard the explosion. She and Freddie had just made it across Fifth Avenue when a moving truck skidded through a red light and fishtailed, taking two cabs and a silver Honda civic with it. There was a huge cacophony of screeching metal, shattering glass, and earsplitting screams and then an odd sort of silence.

"Oh my god," Freddie said, his voice sounding like it came through a black tunnel to reach her ears.

That was when she heard the baby wailing.

Freddie grabbed at Carly's fingers, predicting what she was about to do, "Carly! We can't do anything about it. We'll be exposed. There's witnesses everywhere!"

She twisted out of his grip easily, "I can do it. You stand back here and see if you can… lift the car a little bit. Just try to blend in." With that, she cut through a group of onlookers, half of whom were gaping, the other half helpfully dialing 911 on their cell phones.

"Huge truck-"

"Fire starting-"

"Get an ambulance here as-"

A few words repeated themselves in Carly's mind as she skidded towards the crumpled, flipped silver sedan. It rose two inches and the brunette knew that Freddie, though not physically by her side, was supporting her and would keep her from getting crushed.

_Gas. Mother. Fire. Baby. Explosion. Orphan._

Carly hit the ground on her knees, ripping gaping holes in her pants. The grit and slimy grime of the street pressed their way around the wrinkly flesh around her knees, along with a few pieces of glass. Some part of her brain registered the fact that it was going to hurt later, but she couldn't think about it right now. All she could consciously deal with at the moment was the sight of a red-faced, screaming baby, relatively unharmed, hanging upside down in his car seat. And the sight of a woman, knocked out, bleeding from the forehead, pressed at an impossible angle over the roof of the car, her arms flopped over her like a rag doll's.

"Hey kid!" someone's voice yelled from the side of the street. "Get out of there! It's going to blow." The voice sounded panicked. Carly knew she was probably about to die, but it didn't hit her. Nothing was hitting her the way it was supposed to. Carly stuck her hand under the woman's nose, fully expecting to feel the cold absence of breath but instead feeling a little burst of warmth. Good. But the baby had to come first. Carly flipped over on her back and shimmied her way through the smashed window of the car, sliding along the inside of the roof.

It was a close fit, but she managed to cram her body under the screaming child. She held his stomach with one hand, and unhinged the tiny cloth belt on his seat with the other. Cradling the wailing baby against her chest, Carly squirmed her way back out the window.

Luckily there was a cop standing right over her, panting, His face was determined, but his skin was sallow.

"Give him to me and get the hell out of here," the tall, burly cop said.

Carly handed him the baby and immediately crouched down to work on the mother.

"Young lady," the cop spat out over the screams of the baby and the wail of the too distant siren. "There's gas, there's fire. How stupid are you?"

Stupid, brave, and willing. It was amazing what a lethal combination of all three could produce when the heart cried mutiny against the head. This scene was so familiar to the motherless girl, that she had to shut down any semblance of emotion to focus on the state of affairs.

"So go," Carly said, reaching into the car and grunting as she worked at the twisted mess. There was no blood around her abdomen, which made Carly feel a little better about her prospects, but the buckle seemed to be jammed.

"You're crazy," the cop said, before turning on heel and fleeing. Carly could smell the gas. She could hear the fire and feel its heat. _A little bit._ Carly decided. As uncharacteristic as this kick of courageousness was, Carly knew what it felt like to lose a parent to a car crash. As a kid, she had been powerless. Well, this time she wasn't. This time, Carly understood that she had the power to do something. She was determined to not let this child lose his mother.

Desperate yells and screams rang out from the side of the road, the loudest of which were Freddie's. And the sirens grew louder and more persistent every minute, piercing her head with sharp slices of pain.

But she ignored all of it. She had to. It was the only way she could work.

Carly jammed her thumb into the belt button with every ounce of strength one digit could contain, and it finally popped free. The woman slumped down even farther. Carly reached out a hand and cradled the woman's head. There was blood pouring from her head wound and Carly knew that the only place she'd be able to heal this woman in private was right where she was, hidden from view by the toppled car above her. She heard a popping sound and briefly wondered if that meant the whole car was about to burst into flames. Would that be the last sound she ever heard?

Carly placed the palms of her hand onto the woman's head and willed her hands to warm up. She could see it now. The tissue of her skin, her red blood cells, the punctured veins… Carly focused on the woman's white blood cells and platelets, swishing them around, collecting them and bringing them to the lining of the vessels to begin an accelerated clotting that would repair the fissures. Next was skin… skin was easy. Carly directed her energy into the torn epidermis layer of her body and willed the cells into mitosis, synthesizing ATP, the electrical energy that would cause them to grow and multiply. It was working… there was a nasty scar on her head but it was definitely healing over. The woman moaned and Carly grabbed her under the arms, pulling her free from the car. The woman's heel caught on a chip of glass. It pulled off the shoe and a long shallow gash opened in the flesh around her heel.

The woman didn't seem to feel it so Carly ignored it as she dragged the woman across the street at as much of a run as possible. As she got closer to the sidewalk, a stocky man in a green apron and a tan hoodie jacket came out and took the woman in his arms.

"Inside," he told Carly, nodding toward the small cafe, where a couple dozen people were ducked behind the furniture, trying not to look at the wreck. Carly saw Freddie staring at her from behind the counter, his eyes full of fear, anger, and gratitude.

There were more screams. A shower of glass. Still outside, Carly felt the thrust of heat and turned to look at the road, watching as a puff of flame and smoke rose up from the sedan in a cloud that extinguished itself as quickly as it appeared.

Before Carly could even register how queasy she felt at the sight she just witnessed and how much all she had wanted to do was find Sam and some safe arms she could relax into, she was bombarded by more people than she ever wanted in her personal space.

"Are you insane?"

"How did you do that?"

"Do you want to go out sometime?"

"Hey- There's the news van! Over here!"

As Carly wiped the itchy sweat from her brow, she caught a glimpse of a big blue van with a huge antenna screeching towards the scene of the accident. The crowd was gesturing wildly for the driver's attention, clamoring for their fifteen minutes and wanting to thrust Carly's upon her.

There was a bright white light. A couple of flashes.

"Freddie!" Carly yelled, searching the crowd for him.

"I know," he said, right at her elbow. "Let's go. Let's go home, Carly."

* * *

Sam held up above her a gold ring topped with an amethyst jewel. Its deep hue twinkled as the light hit it. _So pretty._

"Engine's running good and I just replaced the struts." Griffin noted as he walked around the car to where Sam was laying down, her head cushioned by her red and black checkered backpack.

"Great. So I can start driving towards the sunset anytime I please?" Sam asked, sliding the numerous stolen rings over all ten fingers. She began to estimate how much she'd get for them at a pawn shop.

Griffin flopped down on the garage floor and splayed his feet in front of him. "Yup, just gotta stop to top off the gas tank. When you leavin'?" he asked.

"Maybe tonight," the blonde shrugged.

"Where you goin'?"

"East of wherever."

"You sure you don't want me to give it a paint job? The cash we got tonight is more than enough to get it done."

Sam's eyes shifted leftwards towards the rusted, yellow, 90's Chevy. She kinda liked it. It was rough around the edges, just like her. "Nah, I'll probably need it for where I'm going. Ham-spendin' monay."

Griffin nodded stoicly, respecting her preference. Sam always had been a tough shell to crack. The reason why their friendship worked so well was because of how much leeway they always gave each other. They treated each other as equals without judgment. There was never any questions about a decision that was made. The proximity of the wide berth they gave each other, ironically, was what made them so close.

It sucked that he felt that standard protocol needed to be broken tonight.

"So do you want to tell me what you're running from?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Griffin sighed and laid down next to Sam, settling his head on his folded arms behind him. They both stared at the ceiling, counting the number of tiles it was composed of.

"You wanna do it now? I'm suddenly in the mood." Griffin nudged her suggestively, wagging his eyebrows comedically.

"Heh. Yes, but not with you." Sam grinned his direction.

"Ouch, damn Puckett. Harsh… Who is it then?" Sam stayed silent at his question, folding and unfolding her legs over one another absentmindedly. "Well… why don't you go tell this special someone that you'd like to make it with them?"

"Heck no," Sam protested.

"Coward!" Griffin cried out accusingly. He got slugged in the shoulder for it. "My grandma's got more cajones than you."

"Your grandma's been dead for seven years, Griff."

"Yup, shows you how soft you're being." The boy chewed at his bottom lip, "Is it who I think it is?" The mechanic sat up and wiped his hands on his pant legs.

"Mmmhm."

"Not bad taste. C'mon, we're going. Anybody you're in love with deserves to know it." A muscular arm reached out towards Sam to help her to her feet.

* * *

Sam looked up at the tall building standing at Bushwell Plaza. She began walking towards it before she hesitated and stopped in her tracks, peeking backwards over her shoulder. "Don't look at me, what are you waitin' for? I ain't lettin' you punk out Puckster." Griffin glared at her from the seat of his motorcycle.

Sam took in a deep breath and began walking towards the fire escape, taking the stairs two at a time. She would do it, she decided. She'd tell the love of her life how she really felt. And… and that person would love her back, no matter what, she would make sure of it. She would be the best Sam Puckett she could be. _Brown eyes… dark hair… a seductive smile that made her mind go fuzzy…_

What the problem was, was that nobody ever cared about Sam, so Sam had to care about Sam. She was so busy taking care of herself that she didn't feel as though she had anything left to offer someone she cared for. Sam had to believe that the universe revolved around her. She needed some pretense of self-worth. It was a survival mechanism. Now that her world revolved around someone else, she was hopelessly lost.

"Is that you, Sam?" A voice called out from above her as her footsteps shook the metallic steps alerting the tenants to her presence. "We've been looking for you all night, where've you been?"

Sam had been intrigued with this individual since the day they met. The pushing, the bullying... It was all just an excuse to interact with her crush. Since then, the squabbling was more playful, the shoves more gentle. Griffin was right. Sam HAD grown soft. Love had changed her and it was the singular, slithering adversary that she had never put up much of a fight against. It was her kryptonite.

The moon cast its light on the figure above her and its silhouette stood out darkly surrounded by a silver halo. Its shade fell over the blonde as she ascended the stairway. Sam licked her lips. She felt like she could taste it. After all, the shadow was nothing more but an extension of the person itself and she enthralled with this amazing person.

She began running up the stairs at a double pace, so scared that she was about to chicken out like she always did when she had to talk about… ugh… _feeeelings. _Sam's throat dried out and she felt as though she had swallowed the Sahara desert.

"You wouldn't believe what happened today!" the voice called out to her once more.

Sam finally found herself on the right floor, and the right balcony. Her crush stood four feet away from her. Her knees grew weak and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. "Sam! You look winded… Is something wro-"

Sam rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Carly's slender waist. She pulled the surprised girl against herself and swept her lips up into a deep, desperate kiss, trying to communicate as best as possible how important the brunette was to her. Smoothing her fingers into silky raven hair, Sam held her close and threw all of her emotions onto the table. _Carly… if you can read this… you mean the world to me._

* * *

**Author's Note: Anyone see that coming?**

**Thank you to mrmuscle, Mixwe, Jackyboy-08, RemDiamond, AliceRulesMyWorld, and Reviewer for reviewing. I'm fairly sure I've alienated about 80% of my readers but I'll explain my decision to include this shipping next chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9

Her mind-reading abilities were on the fritz.

Something was taking a hold of her.

That was the only way she could explain it.

Although it was Sam who kissed her first, it was Carly who took her hand and pulled her inside through the window. It was Carly who instructed the blonde to sit down on her bed. It was Carly who joined her and rested their foreheads together, her nose bumping playfully with Sam's, inviting the girl to continue with her advances.

"Carly, I need to tell y-" Sam's lips were then abruptly, pleasantly, occupied by Carly's, and any indignant protest she could have come up with quickly died. The brunette's tongue flicked out and ran across the blonde's bottom lip.

With every kiss and every stroke, a rush of images was flooding the young psychic's mind. Emotions were overwhelming her sensibilities. "Just touch me," she whispered. Sam didn't have to be told twice. Her warm hands ran up underneath Carly's shirt, trailing up the small of her back. It was so smooth. Everything was so smooth.

Carly's mind flashed with a memory from Sam's perspective.

_From across the play yard, a young brunette girl sat at a table with her lunch, her stocking-covered legs kicking back and forth. She made eye contact briefly with the blonde and smiled at her brightly. A young ruffian's heart had skipped a beat._

Sam moved her lips from Carly's mouth and trailed gentle kisses up her cheekbone to just underneath her ear. She kissed and suckled at the tender flesh there. Carly closed her eyes and leaned into it. She felt Carly's hands gather in her golden hair to keep her close.

_Warm hands excitedly clasped hers and pulled her into an embrace. They had found all of their chicks and they were safe in their incubator! And although Sam was only mildly excited and moreso hungry, one look into the wild jubilation in Carly's eyes and a rush of exhilaration passed through her. Her joy was contagious. How could her best friend have such an effect on her? _

Carly let slip a purr of pleasure before reaching behind herself to find Sam's hand on her back. She brought it in front of herself momentarily distracting the blonde who ceased her loving attention on Carly's neck to examine her. Doing the most to savor this feeling that was thrumming in her skin, Carly closed her eyes before bringing her lips to tenderly kiss Sam's knuckles one by one. These knuckles that had so fiercely defended her over the years.

_Rage. Pure rage was coursing through her veins as she saw Jocelyn's oversized behemoth arms push Carly down in the Groovy Smoothie. Nobody got away with treating Carly less than what she deserved. "Get her, Sam." And those were the only words that mattered to her at that instance._

Sam was feeling lightheaded. Carly… was literally taking her breath away. The brunette had taken Sam's hand and ran it up her slim stomach to rest on top of her bra covered breast. It was made of simple sheer cotton and Sam had inadvertently brushed up against it plenty of times but this time... it was so different. This was a level of intimacy that had never been explored. It was an invitation to touch Carly not as a friend, but as a lover. There had only been one other time when Sam had felt this short-winded before.

_Sam peered down over the Japanese countryside. Her body was trembling. Glancing over to her side, she made eye contact with Carly and saw her fear reflected back to her. She bit her lip and summoned enough courage for both of them. "You ready?" She asked her. Her brave front seemed to have an impact on Carly who visibly relaxed and nodded. Sam knew that she could jump off the top of the world if Carly was at her side._

The falling feeling of skydiving didn't hold a candle to this. Carly pulled Sam to her with urgent hands, caressing and rubbing everything she could find: Sam's waist, Sam's hips, Sam's thighs. She kissed the blonde, hot and open-mouthed, her tongue tangling with its counterpart in frenzied curiosity. This was Sam. SAM. Her Sam who had been with her all along with these feelings that managed to slip by her. Who was this secret person who had eluded her for all these years?

_She was on the verge of tears. She hated fighting with Carly and due to her stubbornness, they almost got killed. She rubbed at her tender wrists and arms that were red from the strain of holding Carly up and not letting her fall from the window washers' platform. A tingling sensation began to return to her numb fingers._

Sam felt herself being slowly guided down to lay on her back. As her head hit the pillow, Carly clambered on top of her and crossed her arms in front of her to grasp at the hem of her shirt. Pulling it up and over her head, Carly tossed the garment behind her. Her lusty gaze then moved to Sam's offensive article of clothing and began pawing at it. With thumbs hooked at the fringe of Sam's shirt, she crept it upwards, taking the fabric with it revealing the sleek, soft skin of the blonde's toned tummy. A sharp inhale came from the girl as she felt her best friend's tongue circling her belly button.

_Rain. A drop of rain had landed above Carly's eyebrow to run down her cheek. Its course winded around her mouth and dropped off her chin onto the cold pavement outside of the Seattle Beat studio. Their sign was utterly destroyed as was their pride but nevertheless Carly had never looked more beautiful as drops of water clung to her eyelashes and her skin. How could Sam be envious of rain? _

The storm of making out calmed into something much more subdued. Moving lips were much more tender and a far bit softer. Cheeks and noses grazed one another whimsically. Fluttering eyelashes danced as they gave each another playful butterfly kisses. The soft cotton and lace of their bras rubbed together in torturous pleasure but there was no rush to force anything or jump too quickly. Sam ran her tongue along Carly's lips, tasting the sweet lip gloss there. Carly claimed her tongue and sucked on it lightly. The two girls began to enjoy one another at this innocent pace, drinking in the sensations like fine wine.

_Freddie and Carly dancing in the studio, feet hovering above the ground. His arms were wrapped around her as though they were always meant to be there. Carly looked… happy. There was this hole in Sam's stomach that was turning her inside out. She felt utterly… destroyed._

Carly tore her lips away from Sam's. Her visions were beginning to have a physical impact on her. The last one was leaving her shaking. "Why did you never tell me?" she panted from above Sam, her eyes still dark and heavy-lidded from their midnight activities.

Sam did her best to ignore the moonlit view of ample cleavage Carly was affording her in her position. "Because I didn't want anything to change. I wanted to stay close to you and I thought that if you knew, it would've driven you away like it does with everyone else in my life." Sam shrugged her shoulders.

At that moment, Sam looked so vulnerable, fragile and breakable that Carly's heart ached to care for her. The brunette leaned down and brushed her cheek against Sam's in comfort. She kissed Sam's earlobe gingerly and whispered into it, "I'm not going anywhere…" Her voice was velvety and sure. "You mean the world to me too."

Sam turned her head and her jaded turquoise eyes connected with Carly's sincere chocolate ones. The tips of her lips curved upwards into a trusting grin. Sam knew that Carly was telling the truth. Without knowing how to respond or what else to do, she did the first thing that came to mind. "RAWR!" Sam roared out as she flipped Carly onto her back and began mauling at her neck like a ferocious and hungry tiger.

"Ahhhhh!" Carly half laughed and half cried out in mock fear before turning her head to steal more tiger kisses and tickle at Sam's exposed ribs.

* * *

The cold was creeping into Spencer's bones as he trudged along the sidewalk still looking for the trouble-making blonde. Carly and Freddie had already decided to visit all of her hot-spot locations, smoothie shops, pizzerias, weineries, arcades while he was appointed to wander around the outskirts of town. It was all very creepy and Spencer was feeling creeped out and it was not a very enjoyable feeling.

Walking past a lumber yard, Spencer briefly considered engineering a trap of sorts involving a ham, a rope and a wooden cage to try to catch Sam with. Spencer had found that since he was young, he had been a Master Catcher! He could catch anything he put his mind to. Birds, mice, fish, photographers' cats that liked to claw his face off, dandruff, a bad flu…

Except tonight, he was feeling a little aimless. His strength was in his hands. Anything he could solve by building something or manually fixing something, he trusted himself with. However, the emotions and dilemmas of the teenage girl was something else entirely that he was constantly trying to understand. How did Sam find possession of a golf club that he used in his sculpture displayed in an art gallery that was broken into? He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt; he liked to believe that Sam was smarter than to get involved with any kind of crime. But deep down, he knew that it was a real possibility. And if that was true, he couldn't have her coming around the apartment to visit with Carly anymore.

"Hey! Are you the great artist Spencer Shay?" A voice called out from an obscured alleyway.

Spencer's slumped shoulders perked up, mostly because of his being tense in the middle of the night, a twinge because he was feeling self-admiration that he had been recognized. "Uhm… yes? Are you familiar with my work? Did you want an autograph?"

Three stocky men jumped out from behind the shadows. "No hombre, we wanted to pay you back for being the brother of the girl who put Alfonso and Raul in jail." Spencer never saw the bat coming as it cracked him in the ribs. He was overwhelmed with the taste of blood as a knuckle crashed into his jaw. He fell unconscious as a sledgehammer shattered his hand.

* * *

The sizzle and smell was bound to wake her up soon. Carly smiled to herself as she used her spatula to flip over the three slices of bacon and poke at the sunny-side-up eggs to check the hardness of yolk. It was a little burnt at the bottom. Carly had accidentally set the stove too high in her dreamy state of functioning. This whole morning, from waking up in Sam's arms to coming downstairs to cook breakfast, Carly felt the sensation of floating, even moreso than she had the night before with Freddie.

Speaking of, Freddie then marched right into her living room at that moment with his perfectly combed hair and his perfectly laundered and coordinated button-up shirt and slacks to sit at the counter and break her train of thought. "Hey Carly," he started, "I have a few ideas on where we can look for Sam."

As if on cue, Sam chose then to skip down the stairs in the clothes she had been wearing the night before, her hair a ridiculous, tangled mess. Carly couldn't help but to swoon to herself a little. _A sexy, gorgeous, ridiculous, tangled mess._ Carly plated the eggs and bacon and turned to Freddie, winking at him, "I already found her last night. Did you want some breakfast, Freddie?"

Sam reached her arms around Carly and hugged her from behind, pecking her on the cheek. She ignoring the weird stare from Freddie as she offered, "Yeah, you can have mine. I can wait on the next serving." She sprung to the fridge to pour herself some milk. Freddie blinked.

"Sure…" Freddie responded warily to Sam's friendliness and public display of affection. He smoothed a hand through his hair as she bounced to the living room and picking up the remote, began to flip through the channels with a thumb that pulsed at an unnatural speed. Putting his palm up to his cheek, he leaned over to Carly and asked her, "Did you ever find out how Sam got a hold of Spencer's golf club?"

Carly slid the plate in front of him with a fork at the ready and a small bottle of ketchup, "Yeah, Sam said that she stumbled on it in a dumpster. The light of the metal must've caught her eye. You know how she likes shiny things," Carly mentioned, endearment woven through her voice.

"Do you believe her?" Freddie asked skeptically.

"Of course, why wouldn't I? The burglars must've realized they needed to ditch the evidence from robbing the art gallery and Sam found it... What are you getting at?" Carly cracked open another doomed egg into the pan. It hissed in turmoil at the heat.

"Incoming news on the Masked Marauders!" The local Seattle news channel blared out. Carly and Freddie strolled from the counter to throw themselves on either sides of Sam on the couch as they attentively watched the news coverage. "It looks as though the wave of crime that's hit Seattle has been attributed to a daring duo. We have today a drawn rendering of one of the suspects in question! Thanks to a brave security guard, he was able to recollect and communicate to our police sketch artist the facial details of the female known as Dorothy!" A black and white sketch of a girl's face popped up on the screen. Freddie grimaced at the image, Carly tilted her head in puzzlement and Sam fell backwards in laughter.

"Are those horns?" Freddie shook his head, questioning in awe.

"And fangs!" Sam crowed out in the middle of giggling.

"And it looks like, a hoof…" Carly finished. "Dorothy must've scared the wits out of him."

"Yeah…" Sam agreed as she stretched out her arms lazily and propped her feet up on the coffee table. "That girl must be a bad-ass mofo. I know that I'd hate to mess with her."

"Which dumpster was it?" Freddie asked her casually.

"Huh?" Sam looked to her side, a question written on her face.

"Which dumpster did you find the golf club in?"

"Oh. Well, the one near my house." Sam simply explained.

"Wow," Freddie feigned surprise. "Your apartment is pretty far from the art gallery. It's pretty coincidental that the burglars ended up throwing the evidence away in that area."

Sam's eyes narrowed at him. Freddie returned to her a knowing glare.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you to XxLOV3islik3aROS3xX, purpleheart10, and icon777 for reviewing.**

**Now, I promised to explain my reason for a Cam pairing in this story. Mainly three reasons: 1. The first reviewer to my first story ever is coffeerunt who is a Cam shipper. This was more of a thank you than anything. 2. I've noticed that Cam is underserved in this community. I figured that it would be more of a contribution than in the Seddie/Creddie archive. 3. I went with a really organic approach. I wasn't trying to force a preplanned romance. I laid out the characters without any preconceptions and I found that my writing drifted to the two girls in the story. Just happened to be that way.**

**So, although not all of my stories will be Cam, count on this one meandering that general direction. :) As for whether it will ever hit the M rating for risky business. Um... I don't know. Writing make-out/sex scenes is super-awkward for me. I tried to make it good. It's a possibility.**

**By the way, I apologize for how long this one took. College is taking a toll from me. I'll try to get a chapter in every two weeks at the least.**


	10. Chapter 10

He kicked himself for not figuring it out sooner what was so obvious now.

Many people would say that Fredward Benson was a genius. He's not. Not by a long shot. He would consider his intelligence to be on par with most guys his age. What did set him apart and push him over into the fringe of excellence was his devotion and attention to detail. He assumed it was hereditary. He had a mind that wouldn't stop and an attitude that was resolute. It was what made him as good at fencing as he was building computers and completing crossword puzzles. He was a believer in finishing what he started.

With every obstacle encountered in his life, whether it was academic studies, his relationship with his mother, his quest to woo the girl of his dreams, or his intent to pinpoint the identity of the midnight safecracker, he approached it in a way that could be described as though studying a chessboard. Analyzing the situation from all angles and trying to conquer the best of it using prior strategies had always been proven reliable. Honestly, Freddie's focus could put a Tibetan monk to shame.

He believed that if given enough time, he'd be able to solve all the mysteries in the universe. He was confident in his abilities in a way that only a young boy who had been coddled and admired by his mother his whole life could be. No, it wasn't that Freddie was smart. It was that he was _unrelenting_. That's what made him the threat he was.

But you didn't have to possess a degree in rocket science to figure out what was going on, Freddie surmised. You only needed to have taken a seventh-grade introductory algebra course. This was the class that began teaching you the basics of Logic Theory. The premise of the entire subject goes like this: If A equals B and B equals C, then A must equal C. That's it. It's so simple, it hurts. Anyone with a pulse should be able to grasp the concept.

Freddie was only just smart enough to understand how to realistically apply it to their current circumstances. _Observe._ A. Sam was physicially enhanced and she loves money. B Money could often be found in registers and safes like the ones that were being broken into in the middle of the night. C. The thief that law enforcement is looking for was so strong, so fast and so experienced that he or she had managed to elude them through several incidents. A must equal C.

Freddie didn't expect to be awarded a medal for figuring it out. He just wanted resolution. He wanted Sam to confess and turn herself in and leave all of the silliness behind to walk the straight and narrow. Because honestly… yeah, Sam's put him through Hell and back, but something in him still demanded that he care about her. Sam was like this scar on his chest that had disfigured him because of some huge assault or mutilation he had gone through. Weirdly enough, it was kinda cool because he had an amazing story to tell about it. Call him a masochist or something similar but Sam was his friend, the most dysfunctional one he'd ever had in his life.

But there were times when he straddled the line between deciding whether their friendship was worth it or not... whether it was equitable. This was one of those times.

* * *

The tension in the air was ripe. Sam's spidey senses were tingling. If the size of a regular glazed crème doughnut could represent the stress felt while you were taking a math exam at Ridgeway High, then the doughnut representing the pressure of the current predicament in the Shay living room was the size of freaking Alaska.

"You're lying!" Freddie cried out accusingly.

"Yeah, okay. I lied! But c'mon, you already know that about me. Nice to meet you, I'm Sam. I'm deceptive. I love meat. I sometimes borrow stuff without telling people. Hide your valuables while I'm in a thirty-five foot radius," the blonde introduced herself.

"There's more to life than material possessions. There's something called integrity and friendship. I don't know how you rope us into it again and again but we both trusted you. Well, no more. I refuse to be manipulated. I'm turning you in." Brown eyes shot daggers at her.

Sam groaned. "You would. Wouldn't you? What gives you the right to be so self righteous? Did you invent the light bulb and I didn't realize it Thomas Fredison?"

"Aggravated robbery, Sam? Aggravated! That means you had a gun. Do you know how dangerous that is? Where did you get a gun from?"

"The clerk overreacted! It was a banana tucked in my pocket. I was saving it for later, a little post-robbery snack." Sam used her graceful fingers to mimic peeling the yellow fruit and biting into it.

"I don't know what makes you think you're allowed to break the law. You're not special Sam! You're supposed to obey all the laws that everyone abides by. They're there for a reason, to protect everyone equally!" Freddie shouted contemptuously.

"To protect you Freddifer! When has it ever protected me? When Colonel Sanders founded America and wrote down all of those Indian-thumping laws, why was I overlooked? You'll never understand because you are LOVED and you are TAKEN CARE OF by someone you can depend on! Stealing has kept me clothed and fed for the last twelve years. Society's laws was never intended to serve someone like me. It's purpose has always been to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor. I'll do what I have to do to take care of myself while you live your cushy life… I'm tired of playing the game by someone else's rules." A half-snarl reverberated throughout the room.

"Have fun in prison, Sam. I'm sure you'll fit right in." Freddie sniped back.

"Okay. It was wrong, I see that now. But I was using the money to benefit all three of us! I bought us a car and had Griffin fix it up." Sam continued, trying to illustrate her premonition of what their futures held. "I thought we could all go on a road trip together. We could run away to Vegas and start our own act. How hard could it be? Freddie could be the magician, you could be a fortune-teller and I could tightrope walk and like.. wrestle bears and tigers and other ferocious creatures. We could be like this less gay version of Siegfried and Roy!" Sam enthused.

"We have school. We have lives. We have responsibilities." Discipline resonated from his voice as Freddie folded his arms together stubbornly.

"How about you Carly? I can take you to the garage to see it right now. It's just waiting there ready to be revved up!" Sam pleaded gently.

With a thought, Freddie fixed Carly's legs to the floor. She felt as though her feet were dipped in concrete and left to dry. "We're not going anywhere. Especially not with you Sam. We are not getting dragged into your criminal activities."

"Freddie!" Carly protested, "Watch your pronouns! I can decide for myself where I'm going." She shot him a look reserved for people she met who introduced themselves as dogcatchers and telemarketers.

With a jealous tremor, Freddie released her leg, letting her move forward to approach Sam. Carly looked at her with searching eyes, "You lied to me?"

"Yeah," Sam replied solemnly.

"You know that I'm hurt," Carly softly reprimanded.

"I know," Sam quietly deferred.

"You know that you hurt Spencer. He worked really hard on that sculpture."

"I didn't know it was his," she weakly offered, knowing that it was a poor excuse.

"Why are you hurting everyone?" Carly asked in an even tone. Her words were still warm and dipped in empathy.

Sam's eyes cast downwards and she shuffled her feet self-consciously. One hand wrapped around the other, wringing her wrist while looking for some kind of explanation that was acceptable. Her mind raced for all the things she could say, but in the end, there was only one truth. She bit her bottom lip before turning her eyes up to meet Carly's.

"Because I'm good at it." Her eyes shimmered guiltily.

* * *

It was nine in the morning and in a cold, shadowy alleyway, an outstretched hand was sticking out of a dumpster as though begging for a ray of light. It was pale and bloody and the pinkie finger bent in an unnatural way as though it was finally freed from its servitude to the palm. If there was any time to avoid such a sight, run away and try to wipe it from memory, this would be it.

A brave figure with shaky knees approached the junk site fearing the worse. It reached down and pulled out a black trash bag, tossing it to the side to reveal the face that possessed those fingers. The man was a ghostly white, splashed liberally with red. He looked dead. "Oh no… oh no. Oh no. Oh no. No." Frantically, quick hands began brushing away scraps of newspaper and garbage from Spencer's face and body.

Trembling fingers checked for a pulse and found a faint but steady beat. There was a thankful sigh as the fingertips stilled for a split second and moved from Spencer's neck to his battered face, where they traced his hairline to check for blood. "Still alive. But gotta hurry." The figure shifted his weight. "God, you're heavy. I don't think – I can – yeah. Okay. Maybe – Yeah, okay." Spencer was settled over a strong shoulder and he let out something between a wheeze and a gasp of pain as his world turned upside down. One eye opened and stared out at the fuzzy world before rolling back. He gratefully sank into the safe haven of oblivion.

"It'll be all right." A rugged hand grasped one of Spencer's dangling ones and squeezed gently. "Whoa!" A misstep nearly had them both tumbling to the ground. Spencer released a groan, though he remained unconscious. "I'm sorry, I'll be-" stepping over a pile of broken bottles, "more careful." Lines formed on Spencer's normally smooth forehead. He began to groan every time he was jostled, which turned out to be nearly every step, and a steady stream of blood dripped out from his face, soaking through the denim jacket beneath his cheek. He was carried off on a run, his savior breathing heavily as he struggled with Spencer's weight. "The hospital's a couple blocks away. We're almost there, it's so close… so close."

* * *

"You were right to let her go," Freddie commented over Carly's back as she folded her clothes, making tight corners on all of her shirts while navigating through the pile to match her socks together. The two were in Carly's bedroom with Freddie perched comfortably on top of her desk.

"She said she had an errand to run. We'll see her tomorrow." Carly let her hand linger on a tank top of Sam's that had managed to get mixed into her laundry.

"I don't like to say this, but she's not a good person, Carly. I don't think we should be hanging out with her anymore. She's abusive. She vandalizes. She steals. She lies-"

"She's in love with me." Carly finished for him.

"What? Sorry, my mother hasn't dewaxed my ears in a while, so I thought you said…" Freddie was clearly taken off guard.

"The game from last night was that you tell me your secret and I tell you mine. Sam loves me and my secret is that… I'm not sure, but I think I might feel the same way for her." Carly admitted to herself out loud for the first time.

"Are you two together?" He asked with barely concealed envy.

"Of course not. We just kissed a little last night," she responded, unaware of the stewing emotions behind her. "It's not, "add water, microwave on high for two minutes, instant relationship." Sam and I are taking it slow… If there's anything to take slow in the first place. After she broke up with Griffin, Sam told me that she thought that monogamy was for ugly people." Carly frowned awkwardly at the statement.

"But I love you." Freddie insisted.

"I know, Freddie." Carly brushed it off casually as she always did before.

"No, I don't think you do." Freddie grabbed at her hand, spinning her around to capture her full attention. She turned around to look at him curiously.

"I love you. I'm not sure you know what that means." He cleared his throat nervously. "I am Fredward K. Benson. My ancestors were legged fish that crawled out of the primordial ooze after the Earth cooled down from being formed from stardust swirling about in space. It took four-hundred-thousand years of human evolution to create me. I was created and I exist so that I could dedicate myself to you." He explained, very matter of factly.

"But I'm not… that's sweet, but I'm not _that_ special. I'm just me, Carly. Simple, ordinary, everyday, girl-next-door Carly. There are other girls out there much more unique and interesting that find you cute, charming and completely dateable, Freddie." The humbleness in her voice wrapped around his heartstrings and tugged.

"They're not you. Did you know that it only takes four basic elements to create life on a planet? Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon. They're all very simple and common molecules, but without one of them existing, nothing that breathes can live. Light and heat are very ordinary and every day too but if the sun stopped providing it, the world would freeze over and die in a span of seven minutes." Freddie reached out to tuck back a strand of Carly's hair behind her ear. "Truthfully, it's the simple things that we need the most. What others take for granted, we rely on most heavily. Carly, you're… my oxygen molecule."

Carly stood there, dumbstruck.

* * *

Tossing the empty candy wrapper in the trash can, Sam tiredly resumed her post in front of the dim sum house several doors down from the Taozhou Bazaar. The sun had nearly set. A bitter wind had settled over the street. The crowd of pedestrians had begun to thin out, ducking into doorways like squirrels burrowing into holes for the winter. Sam shifted on her feet, rubbing the sides of her arms through her sleeves.

Maybe she should duck inside the restaurant to keep warm. But then she might miss Griffin. She turned her head to look at the tank filled with striped sea bass in the window, their opalescent bodies undulating in the water as they pressed their fish lips against the glass. She couldn't help but smile. It almost looked as if they were blowing kisses at her. She puckered her lips and air kissed them back. It was kinda funny. Well, actually it wasn't funny at all. Now that she had officially lost Carly's trust, this was the closest to making out Sam was likely to ever get.

But the window did serve a purpose. By staring into it at a certain angle, she was able to use its reflection to get a good view of the street.

It was another rule of criminal behavior to make use of reflective surfaces. It was best never to look directly at anyone, but to use car doors, windows, whatever makeshift mirrors were available. The city was full of them and this fish tank full of striped bass was as good as any. _Wait a second. _Sam's eyes narrowed. Reflected there in the glass, she could see a shadowy image cross the nearly deserted street. There was something familiar there. It had something to do with the haircut. Against her better judgment, Sam decided to turn around for a more direct look.

She nearly crashed into a tall figure on the way. "Hey! Watch out Puckett!" Griffin cried aloud before grinning at her in his usual cute boyish way. "You almost trampled me like gazelles did Mufasa, what's the rush?"

"Griffin," she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him in full view of the public. "It's great to see you."

He returned it back to her, surprised at the uncharacteristic display of affection, "Reciprocated!" He trailed a hand through her soft blonde curls. "Are we doin' good? Did it work out last night? I need the deets yo."

"Yeah, it went better than expected but… there's some things I need to fix. Can we go talk about it somewhere?" Sam asked him firmly.

"Yus yus. I have some booze back at my place. Half-drunken conversations can commence! Problems shall be resolved!"

"Boozin' it up is your solution to everything." Sam rolled her eyes.

"F'real." Griffin nodded his head, actively agreeing.

* * *

Four hours later and a whole lot of empty clinking bottles rolling around, Sam and Griffin were playing rock, paper, scissors in his cluttered garage.

Griffin went with rock. It always seemed like the safest choice. It was solid and easy for a fist to form. Sam, however, apparently didn't feel the same way. Her two fingers formed the crooked V shape of a pair of scissors.

"You losht! You losht! You've never losht! I've neveeer beaten you at enysthing." Griffin's head swayed back and forth, clearly amazed at his victory.

"Shudd-hicC-up. Yeww smelllllyy boy." Sam growled at him disdainfully. "Likee I sed, we-we need to- we need to- whut we need to dooo ish senddd da restt of the monies back in a shuuuboX to the pahleece departmento. Itz the rite thingg to doo."

"Sammieee, iz thitsh whut Carleee told you to dooo?" Griffin's voice humorously rose an octave on the last word.

Sam shook her head side to side violently. Her body looked as if it was going to flop over with it. "No. nono. I'm raken the yard. I'm goinn be goood now."

"Turnen ovaaah a nuuu leef?" Griffin clarified drunkenly.

"Yesh. Dat." Sam's eyelids closed as she leaned her head against the concrete wall. She was so sleepy.

A moment of silence passed.

"I'm shhorruy. So shorrry Buckkett." A breathy whisper called out.

"Huhh?" Sam's eyes opened.

"Aiie didmt. Deyy offurrrred me moniez. It wuz soo mucsh. So mucsh. I had tooo. Ie always wunted too starth muh ownnn mekkanikz garazge shoppk." Griffin looked at his half formed fist, shaking his head in shame. "So shorrry.."

Sam looked up only in time to see the blurry vision of a rag coming towards her to close around her nose and mouth. She didn't have the time to struggle before her body gave out beneath her and she was being dragged away. Although she couldn't hear it, her compatriot still spoke to her, begging for her forgiveness. "Iem uh schumbagg Sammieee! I wrealle am. Iem a scckumbag!"

"Good job." A deep voice acknowledged as a sack of bills fell into Griffin's lap.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you to Anon1, HizumiD, NeonDistraction, SilverTurtle, BlaireBanner, power2corrupt, ApocalypticDarkAngel and MosquitoMilk for being new reviewers. It means a lot. :) ****It's silly, but I feel psyched that I broke one hundred reviews. If I could, I'd go all OPRAH on this joint and start giving away free cars.**

**And after a comment on a forum I read about the disdain for fanfiction resembling Stephanie Meyer's Twilight stories, I feel like gagging myself. I think I've pretty much fallen into that. Innocent wide eyed brunette in a love triangle between a troubled, moody, unpredictable love interest and a good, warm, loyal friend.**

**Before you ask, no. I will not be introducing a fast-aging, half-breed child of Sam and Carly's with an effed up name to be Freddie's new girlfriend.**

**If you don't understand that reference, I applaud you.**

**And another note: Mixwe has convinced me to keep this story T-rated. If there is any portion of it that is M, it will be a separate, individual, optional insert. Allusions may be made to sexual activity, but nothing graphic. There's a lot of other fics that are super-smutty so you pervs out there shouldn't be left wanting. ;)**


	11. Chapter 11

There's no honor among thieves.

_Who said that? Probably some dead guy, a jerk-off who thought he knew everythin'. _Griffin's motorcycle raced across the freeway, swerving left into the oncoming lane of traffic before tilting back to the right to pass a slow car. Griffin was speeding out as town as fast as his bike would carry him. The weight of the paper sack was tucked inside his jacket, pressing against his chest in reassurance. He had done what she had told him to do. Sam would understand.

_"This won't be like the last time," Sam had proposed, her hip jutting to the side, hugged tightly by her low-rise jeans. She stood there as though she owned the place. "If you get caught, I'm running as fast as I can and I am not looking back." _

_"I don't believe that!" Griffin professed incredulously._

_"Believe it, boyo. And I would expect you to do the same." Sam rationaled. "It's better if one of us rots in jail than both of us, right?" She chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Let's make a deal. Whichever one of us doesn't end up in handcuffs sends the other to therapy after being released from prison all traumatized because we ended up becoming some big buff convict's unwilling sex monkey."_

_"It's gonna be you." Griffin reached out his hand, hooking a finger onto one of Sam's belt loops. He pulled gently on it and she fell onto his lap without so much as whimper. "I'm nobody's bitch."_

_"Oh yeah?" Sam giggled before lowering her eyelids in a sultry stare and deepening her voice in a husky male impersonation. "You fer suree got sum purdy lips there son."_

_Griffin relinquished a smirk, "Smartass. You know Puckett, you're going to end up on the FBI's top ten most wanted list someday. And me, I'm gonna think about all the times you teased me and maybe the cash reward looks more appealing, yeah?"_

_"What?" Sam squawked, breaking character. _

_"Mmmmhm," Griffin made a show of taking his sunglasses out of his front pocket and breathed on them hotly, polishing the lens with finesse. _

_"Oooh. You wouldn't dare." Sam challenged, "Fine, do it. But you know that as soon as I broke out of that popsicle stand, I'd hunt you down and kick your ass. It's not like I wouldn't know exactly where to find you. You'd be here in your living room, scratching yourself and surfing auction listings on pee-wee babies…What the heck is with your obsession with those little stuffed critters anyways?"_

_"It's… it's just a financial plan, okay?" He responded defensively. "You're a woman. You wouldn't understand. I'm playin' it like the suits on wall street, investin' now so I could sell the whole lot in ten years and become a millionaire."_

_She didn't look convinced._

_"Pee-wee babies are cotton gold." He reaffirmed._

_"Oh. So that's why you spent last weekend making out with them..." Sam drawled._

_Griffin glowered. He glowered at the world. He glowered at the universe._

_"Griff, you and me, we're kindred spirits." Sam affectionately pinched at his scruffy chin._

_He grunted at her._

"_It's true, caveboy. Our friendship is one of the ages. The day you and I met, destiny laid a hand, the stars aligned, the heavens parted and something beautiful was created. We're something to be envied by the gods." Sam nodded her head convincingly at him._

_He groaned. Why did he have to listen to this? Sam always launched into flatter-mode when she wanted something from him._

"_But despite that Hallmark card I just ripped off, you and I are business partners first. We can't let concern and sentimentality cloud our judgments when we have so much green to gain. If one of us gets in trouble, the other looks out for themselves. We'll rendezvous later, no guilt about doing what we had to, to save our own butts, capiche?" _

"_Alright, alright... I'm in. What do I gotta lose? I'll agree, but I don't like it, Sam. I don't like it at all." Griffin frowned. "This place you're thinkin' of heistin', do you have a plan, blueprints, a photo, anythin'?"_

_Sam's eyes sparkled. This boy had no idea what he was in for._

Griffin flinched as a mosquito splattered onto the visor of his motorcycle helmet. He wiped it away with a gloved knuckle. "Damn bloodthirsty parasites."

* * *

Carly and Freddie ran through the hospital's hallway, out of breath when they spotted Gibby leaning against a wall, wrestling awkwardly with his denim jacket. "Hey, we got your text. What happened?" Freddie asked as he approached the spiky haired boy, offering his hand. It was taken and given a strong shake.

"'Sup guys. Um. I really don't know." Gibby greeted Carly with a half embrace. It was quick. He was really sweaty. "I was halfway done building a doghouse for Tasha's new puppy and was on my way to the lumber yard to pick up some more wood when I found him. He was just laying there, under all of this trash." Gibby's chubby features twisted in concern. "I figured I'd wait with him until you guys got here. Uh… It's been for a couple hours. Do either of you know how to get blood out of your clothes?"

"Hand wash with cold water instead of hot." Freddie, who was prone to excessive bleeding, instructed.

"Who?" Carly asked, confused as to why they were told to meet here.

"Spencer… it's Spencer and he's not doing too good." Gibby's gruff voice grated out.

Carly's heart dropped into her stomach. "Where can I see him?" she asked. He pointed to the entryway behind her. She took no time to hesitate as she threw open the door and rushed in, apologizing briefly as she bumped into a nursing assistant.

"So, I'm gonna hit the road. There's a plumber expecting me in the morning." Gibby explained, taking his jacket off to sling over an arm.

"For what?" Freddie took a passing interest.

"He's going to show me how to install a toilet in the doghouse. It's a three bedroom, one and a half bath." Gibby replied, as though it was obvious.

"Oh." Freddie uttered, mildly confused. He called out once again as the good samaritan began walking towards the exit. "Hey Gib… thanks for looking out."

Gibby turned around and saluted him respectfully. "It's no problem. You and Spencer are like brothers to me... I'll always be here to watch your back, man."

* * *

"Spencer?" Carly approached her brother's bed, anxious about what she would see.

"Carlay." Spencer's voice rang out loud and clear, a hint of whimsy resonating through his voice. She followed it, around a curtain and found him in a medical bed, his leg elevated in a cast, his hands wrapped in bandages.

"What happened?"

" Well, I was walking along the street when like, these TEN NINJAS JUMPED OUT from behind a bush and started nun-chucking me in the face!" Spencer exaggerated, his voice pitching higher and higher for effect.

Carly blinked at him.

"I'm kidding. That's not what happened." He smiled bashfully.

"Oh," she responded leniently.

"I was walking along the street when like, these SEVEN LITTLE DWARVES grabbed me and took me into their cottage in the woods and made me wash the dishes! And when I asked the dwarf boss, "Hey Doc, can I go outside with Happy and Dopey and frolic with the forest animals?" Grumpy stomped into the kitchen, picked up a pan and started smacking me around!"

His sister didn't smile.

"I'm kidding. That's not what happened."

Carly sensed a pattern. She was not amused.

"There was like THIS BEAR that escaped from the zoo! RAWR. And I was carrying this jar of honey minding my own business whe-"

"Why can't you ever be serious?" Carly asked, aggravated by his antics.

"I… I was just trying to lighten the mood sis." Spencer's voice softened in remorse.

"It's not helping! You're broken… You're all broken, head to toe and no amount of band-aids are going to fix you. Not the strip ones, not the square ones, not the knuckle ones or the fingertip ones…"

"Adhesive bandages."

"What?"

"Adhesive bandages. Band-aid is a brand name, and to be fair to the market consisting of competitors and more generic producers, you should say, "adhesive bandages," he corrected. "It levels the playing field." He nodded sagely.

"…Spencer."

"Here's the truth, Carly. I have two fractures in my leg… it'll heal in a month. I have stitches on my chest and my back. I'm bruised all over. I had a concussion. It might be slight brain damage. The doctors don't know yet and honestly, I wouldn't know how you'd be able to tell. All of that… it doesn't matter. I'm young, I'm healthy, I'll get over it." Spencer's tone reflected the honesty and severity of his condition. "What I may never get over is that my hands are mangled… My attackers broke every single finger. They're never going to grow back right. I don't know how I'm going to feed myself." He gestured toward a tray of hospital food, uneaten. "I've seriously been staring at that pudding cup for five hours straight."

Realization hit her like a ton of bricks. "You'll never sculpt again," Carly whispered as she picked up the pudding cup, peeled the wrapper off and dipped the plastic spoon into it.

"No, see that's what I thought too when I found out. But I will. This won't stop me. I'll learn how to sculpt with my feet if I have to. I'll be the first foot-sculptor. I'll be famous!" He proclaimed optimistically.

"Oh, Spencer. Who did this to you? And why?" Carly brought the spoon to her brother's mouth and he accepted it. A smudge of the chocolate cream trickled onto his chin. She reached for a napkin and wiped it off.

"I don't know… I don't know and it doesn't really matter. I'm still here Carly, I'm alive."

He heard the softest sound of sniffling. Carly had ducked her face behind a curtain of raven hair.

"No, don't cry. Please don't cry. Wanna hear something funny? When I first got here, they did a blood transfusion on me. Bet you can't guess what my blood type is."

"O?" Carly dolefully ventured. Her brother was a one-of-a-kind, rare and special person. It would be fitting that he'd have a one-of-a-kind, rare and special blood type.

"No, B +." Spencer chuckled, before wheezing as a shock of pain thundered through his chest. He grimaced before smiling at his sister once more. "Get it? B Positive? Be positive. Isn't that funny, sis?"

The Shay brother looked at his younger sister and knew that she didn't hear what he was saying. She wasn't paying attention to him anymore. She was too busy bawling into his shirt.

Spencer's mouth tightened at the corners. His eyes grew watery. He began crying too.

* * *

**Author's Note: I recently was sent a few messages that said something along the lines of, "For a Cam fic, you sure included a lot of Freddie," and, "WTF, is this Cam or Creddie?"**

**I felt like I had to crawl on top of a soapbox for this. ^_^ I am not a shipper whatsoever. I can say that my favorite scenes are the ones between Sam and Spencer but I enjoy the show in its entirety. I'm writing this fic and sweating to showcase as many elements and characters as possible because they are all equally awesome and make this show what it is. (Seriously, I've been racking my brain to figure out how to include Magic Malika in here because she's insane/amazing/underrated.) I also see loads of real and potential chemistry in the relationships between all of the characters.**

**So yes, after much indecision/deliberation on my part, you can classify this as, "just a Cam fic." But I feel like all of my efforts are kind of cheated by that description. I consider this to also be a Creddie fic, a Siffin fic, and on a smaller note, a Sparly and (to be expanded upon) Seddie with a mention of Tibby fic. If you can figure out what kind of crazy portmanteau you can mash together for that, tell me because it's what I'd like this to be labelled as.**

**Honestly, shipwars ruin the fandom for me. We all like iCarly, so what is there to argue about? Be friendlier and more openminded, goshdarnit.**

**Thank you to Toki Nakama and JohnFreemanOverHere and all of my repeat reviewers. Honestly, it may seem like a trivial act, but it's what makes a writer feel relevant.**


	12. Chapter 12

It may be surprising to hear that Sam Puckett found religion once.

The event didn't involve having to button up a pair of church-pants like Freddie's or teaching a self-defense class at synagogue like, "Judo for Judaism!" combat instructor Shelby Marx. She didn't loiter around the Temple of Krishna to try to pick up on cute Indian girls like Spencer or accompany Carly Shay to a meeting of the Muslim Club at school to welcome the new foreign exchange student. Neither did she, like Magic Malika, uncover her new spirituality by forging a relationship with the Earth Mother or the Moon Goddess. Until recently, she had been in Gibby's crowd, too involved with her own damn problems to contemplate on whether there was or was not an invisible man in the sky giving out free lottery tickets to happiness on Earth.

Sam was never looking find the blueprints to life, the universe and everything. Truthfully, she couldn't care less. But against her better judgment, understanding bowled her over in a place where all of her most deeply personal and soul-inspiring revelations had always been found.

She was in the Shay kitchen, stuffing her face with fried pastries.

Breakfast that day was easy and predictable. Freddie was be talking around a mouthful of omelet and waffles about a new star he discovered in the sky, what elements it was composed of and which of his favorite Galaxy Wars character he was going to name it after. Carly was painting her toenails a shimmery blue while sipping at her fruit smoothie and Sam was perched on the counter, holding a box of a dozen assorted krispy kreme doughnuts in her lap.

She was washing it down with a depleting half-gallon of skim milk.

It was mid-chew between filtering out Freddie's dork-speak and somewhat-interesting-speak did she spot the secondhand blender on the counter adjacent to her that her best friend had earlier formulated a smoothie with.

She wiped at the corner of her mouth with a sleeve and looked down at her doughnuts.

She glanced back to the blender.

Three seconds later, she was stuffing doughnuts down into the large Pyrex blender capsule: cinnamon, blueberry jelly, chocolate glazed, lemon crème, powdered, strawberry-filled, cruelered. Then she poured in as much milk as she could, secured the rubber lid and smashed down every button on that blender, mix, cleave, chop, mince, puree, mangle, congeal, whatever. She watched as all those doughnuts turned into a viscous and coagulated vomit-colored sludge and then lobbed off the lid, lifted the entire concoction to her mouth and took a swallow.

Needless to say, it was the most horrifying kick in the head of concentrated sugar she'd ever tasted. But as she spat the mud out into a sink full of dishes… she realized…

The doughnut smoothie was a perfect metaphor for what was clearly the chaos of human existence. Thinking over the circumstances of her life, her father's abandonment, her celebrity status in a hit web show, her stint in juvenile detention for the most trivial of offenses, her fledgling relationship with a mother more irresponsible and immature than she was… It all seemed to her to be a prevailing and daily cycle of misery and happiness and excitement and boredom. There's no order to anything, no reason for anything. It's all just one long list of absurd events with no payoff whatsoever. She could feel what she wanted, it didn't matter. She could do what she wanted, it didn't matter. There was no meaning to any of it.

No master plan for her life, no road to follow. She always seemed to get into trouble even while trying to behave as, "good," as possible. There were these catastrophes and these phenomenons that happened to her, around her, over her and under her that equated to her always playing a game of jump-rope evasion; hop, duck and run for cover.

She and everyone she knew could be boiled down to just a bunch of random doughnuts, crammed into this giant blender for no apparent reason, chopped at, spun around and blended together into a repulsive and utterly meaningless ooze.

So she decided, as far as she was concerned, she would just do and feel nothing and everything at the same time, in giant swirls and spins and stop and starts. No control over a stitch of it, no boundaries to what she could do. Let's just follow our impulses. If she was happy, great, let's go help an old lady cross the street. Angry? Okay, let's just break everything in sight.

It was the idea of control that was ridiculous. People were always trying to restrain themselves or else they were trying to manipulate someone else. She didn't understand why nobody could see past the illusion.

She was unbelievably pissed off right now that she had even bought into the idea that the world made sense whatsoever.

There she was, attempting to make things right with the people she cared about most. And here she is, arms bound behind her back, some blockhead in a suit shouting into her ear about something that didn't involve her at all. What omniscient wisdom of the cosmos justified that?

* * *

Orientation was becoming a problem for her. _I need to focus._ Thoughts were smeared like tar inside Sam's head. Shapeless ideas were flooding her mind, melting together too quickly and hardening into an impenetrable black sludge.

_Where am I? What do I know for sure?_

She was having flashbacks. It must've been the drugs rushing through her capillaries and veins. She was sure of it. Or it could be the fact that she dying. Her lungs were about to explode. That seemed like a reasonable explanation too.

"Pull her out," a deep voice commanded.

A lever was turned and Sam's tranquillized body was wrenched up from a pool of water. She gasped as oxygen was made available to her again. It burned through her throat and mixed in with the taste of copper. Something in her mouth was bleeding.

"Anti-gravity. Tell me how he's doing it, Sam. Is it a synthetic device? Did he invent it? How long has he had it for?"

Sam didn't bother struggling against the ropes binding her. It was futile. Screw this guy if he thought he'd get anything out of her. "Do you… like your right eye?" Sam spat out, exhaustion wearing her down. "'Cause I know I'm not the strongest or the fastest right now… but when I get out of here, I'm going to summon up all my strength into punching your right eye. Hard. Over and over and over again. You could shoot me or stab me or taze me… but I'm taking that baby out." She flashed him a grin, before slumping over in a daze.

"It's for you, sir." A man in a dark suit approached Cal and handed him a cell phone. Cal sighed and pressed it to his ear, talking into the mouthpiece. "What is it? Yes, we've got the girl. So she won't be giving you any problems. Begin part two of the operation, Nevel, and see that it is meticulous. If you can't find it, you know what to do." He snapped the phone shut and looked at the time displayed on the exterior LED display. This interrogation had been lasting hours.

"I forgot to tell you," Cal murmured darkly at the crumpled, unconscious form. "You get a phone call, Sam. Just one. Who'd you like for me to dial? Freddie? Carly? Spencer? Melanie? Your mother? Anyone else I can kill because of this insolent display of noncompliance?" His voice began to rise in rage.

He threw the phone into the pool behind her before addressing a subordinate, "Shake her awake and drown her until you get the answers we need."

* * *

Spencer had asked her to go home and bring him some clean clothes in the morning.

Carly blasted her shower as hot and strong as it could go and climbed in. Ahhhh. She gathered that what everyone said about sex could be pretty good, but she couldn't imagine that it felt much better than hot jets of water pounding across her flesh.

She needed to wash away the exhaustion of the day.

When Carly was very little, she and Spencer used to put together puzzles; huge challenging ones that would suck out your mind and soul if it was kept at for too long. Spencer's experience alongside his understanding of lines and color gave him the edge in assembling them together. Like a symphony composer, his hands would dodge left and right, his fingers vacuuming up stray pieces on the carpet and clicking them together forming a carpet of cardboard that grew inch by inch further dominating her room as a young Carly scrambled around it on all fours picking up her coloring books and stuffed animals to throw onto her bed, paving space for the completely underestimated size of the overwhelming mosaic.

Spencer would always let his little sister put the last piece in. And she would be satisfied.

As she grew a little older and thus entrusted with an allowance of her own, Carly would run to the supermarket to buy her own puzzles to piece together. And while Spencer would tackle portraits that were made up of thousands of pieces depicting famous works of arts spanning the globe, she would be perfectly content to complete her twenty-five puzzle of a puppy peeking its eyes and nose out of a wicker basket.

Except for the times that her up-to-no-good brother would steal one of her pieces and hide it in her hair, of course.

She eventually got a little better into junior high, but by then Spencer had up and left for college and she was less interested than before.

Healing was a little like that.

She closed her eyes and lathered her hair up with a sweet-smelling shampoo.

Once Spencer had fallen asleep with the aid of his morphine, she had asked Freddie to guard the door and make sure that any nurse making rounds would be chatted up with and distracted.

Carly unrolled the bandages on Spencer's hands, careful not to further injure them. She cupped her palms over her his and concentrated.

Healing a break in the skin or the veins was simple. These cells multiplied fast and they were malleable. As a mental exercise, it was the equivalent as rolling two separate balls of play dough in her hands and pinching them together.

When she had tried to heal Spencer's shattered bones however, she was immediately transported back to her old room, her young eyes glazing over as she tried to make sense of a thousand-piece puzzle. Though this time, she had no wry smile of her older brother to encourage her, every piece was the same grey color and the room had no semblance of lighting.

When her body felt warm and clean, her hair scrubbed and rinsed, she forced herself to turn off the water. She wrapped herself in a towel and hurried back. Waiting for her there was Sam's soft, clean, ribbed tank top, folded atop her stack of laundry. She slipped it on. It was just what she needed.

She had pulled away her hands from Spencer to find his fingers as damaged as before she had touched them. She had failed. She rewrapped his hands in bandages and walked out of his room, disappointed and weary. She only half-smiled when she exited the room to find Freddie in a beef jerky, "light saber," fight with a bald-headed little boy who escaped from pediatrics.

At the foot of her bed, she spied Sam's shoes, the scuffed up sneakers she'd been wearing yesterday. For some reason, the sight of them stole her breath. Though empty, the shoes sat in a pose strongly suggestive of Sam, of exactly how she stood and walked. It was so crazy that a pair of uninhabited shoes could carry so much subtle information about her. But they did. They brought Sam right into the room with her.

Why wasn't she answering any of her calls?

She pulled back her comforter and climbed under her covers thinking about how in the world her life went astray, when Freddie, lovable but always ill-timed Freddie barged into her room and announced, "My apartment was broken into."

Carly managed to squeak out, "What?"

Freddie made his best attempt to be taken seriously despite his Einstein-sticking-his-tongue-out t-shirt, "Nevel broke into my apartment and I'm pretty much going to cream him."

"Why do you assume it wa-"

Freddie squirmed.

"Um?" Carly was pretty sure there was something here she wasn't getting.

"He color-coordinated my underwear drawer and left a perfumed ransom and/or love letter on my desk."

She wanted to laugh and cry, all at once.

* * *

**Author's Note: I was playing around with time sequence as a literary device in Carly's portion of the chapter, hope it was successful. :)**

**I won't let this story go unfinished. It will happen. I am just taken aback how a chronicle I planned to end in 9-12 chapters is being drawn to a good minimal of 16.**

**For a story that started off kinda light and airy, many dark times ahead, but plan for a satisfying ending.**

**Thank you to Lanternfan, Joe Chief, Kaika-sama and Stellar-Raven for being new reviewers. And my gratitude to the rest of you for being great fans.**


	13. Chapter 13

_Nevel isn't a terrorist. He's not toying with us out of spite. There's a method to his madness… There's something he wants._

This is what Carly held in the back of her mind as she and Freddie traipsed up his front steps to rap on his door. But before either of their knuckles made contact, the aperture swung open to reveal the chesire smile of the blonde arch nemesis. "Well, well. If it isn't my two favorite troglodytes. Come in and shut the door behind you. I'll excuse your intrusion," he sauntered back into his living room.

"Troglodyte?" Carly murmured unsurely to her best friend.

"Dinosaur," Freddie confidently answered her.

"Oh." Carly and Freddie trailed after him and settled down on the couch.

"What do you want from us, bow-tie?" Freddie asked tersely through clenched teeth. This bought him a nudge from the point of Carly's naked elbow.

"Diplomatic as possible," she mouthed to him silently in reminder.

"Well a little civility wouldn't hurt." Nevel leaned backwards against an armrest and picked up a small brass bell, ringing it with a fluid tilt of the wrist. At the soft chiming, a porcupine in a miniature tuxedo popped up from behind the coffee table to begin pushing a tray with three champagne flutes toward them by the wedge of its little black nose. "Red wine?" he offered.

"That's cranberry juice." Carly pointed out. The correction did nothing to dampen his sense of superiority

"Civility?" Freddie huffed angrily, "How civil was it for you to ransack my room?"

"Well, what other choice did I have, Benson?" Nevel remarked, undaunted. "You refuse to relinquish a cell phone number to me, you send my e-mails straight to your spam folder and you won't friend me on Splash Face." He pouted with his last accusation. "Am I supposed to resort to carrier pigeons and smoke signals?"

"Nevel," Carly cautiously interrupted, producing a crisp pink sheet of stationary paper with flowery lettering written unto it. "You wrote that Sam was in trouble and the only way we could help her was to go through you." She tossed the folded slip onto his table. "What did you mean by that?"

"It means that I have the upper hand," he bragged. "She's been stashed somewhere safe but inaccessible. This will remain the status quo until I get what I want."

"And what do you want, exactly?" Carly asked irritably. "Because if you can see this guy sitting next to me…" Freddie tilted his head towards her curiously. "He once dated this girl named Magic Malika so he kinda has pull with her. Freddie, tell him who Magic Malika is."

"Oh, just your typical, run-of-the-mill, crazy, gypsy girl who can curse you with a plague that makes your junk fall off."

"Junk. Fall. Off." Carly enunciated, verbally jabbing at Nevel with every syllable.

"Hah! Threats and brutish posturing won't deter me. The stakes are too high," he shot back. Although successfully calling her bluff, one of his hands betrayed his brave front by creeping downward to protect his nether regions. "You must think me to be a fool."

"We think you to be obnoxious as all get-out." Freddie muttered. "He's obviously trying to trick us, Carly."

"I don't think so," Carly protested, siding with Nevel to the shock and awe of both boys. "Nevel doesn't lie… not really. He's paid other people to lie for him and he's omitted the truth before, but if he says he has Sam, I believe him."

"See, she admitted it. I'm a veritable paragon of virtue." Nevel waggled his eyebrows as he flopped down onto the couch next to Carly and stretched suavely to place one arm on the backrest behind her.

"You're going to ask us for something impossible, aren't you?" Carly asked, already knowing how Nevel liked to wheel and deal.

"Impossible? Of course not. Painful and humbling, well that's a given." He crossed one leg over the other in self-satisfaction. "You see, my clients prefer to be anonymous and aren't interested in getting involved with a multi-continential bidding war to pay for your gravity-defying invention. I promised to be the middleman that would deliver it to them in exchange for a software development grant awarded to me when I turn eighteen." He tapped her on the hand, smiling graciously despite his intention to blackmail. "You will get Sam when I deliver the contraption to them."

"What are you talking about? Freddie never inve-"

"I know it exists," Nevel interrupted her. "Photographic evidence doesn't lie."

Freddie coughed quietly and looked to Carly with guarded eyes. _Don't expose us, _his thought wave traveled to her receptive mind, _least of all to Nevel Papperman._

Carly wrapped her fingers around a champagne flute. She needed a drink after all.

"Freddie, will you wait outside for me? There's something I need to discuss with Nevel."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'll call if I need help," she confirmed with him.

Freddie excused himself, but not before giving one last glare of daggers at Nevel.

"A toast?" Carly raised her glass, feeling as though their meeting needed a fresh start.

"To fame," he picked up his own goblet and clinked it against hers.

They both sipped at their drinks, maintaining awkward eye contact.

"I'm going to kiss you now," she proposed, sliding closer to him.

"What?" surprise rang out. "Why?" he asked in distrust.

"Because we'll both get something out of it," she answered truthfully.

"Hmph…" A begrudging tone laced through his words, "I know that my charms aren't easy to resist, but I don't see what's changed between us to rationalize such an adjustment of trajectory in our adversarial relationship."

"Well, if you don't want me to," Carly shrugged and started to move away, but Nevel wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back to him.

"I… I didn't say that." Nevel's voice sounded lower than usual. It was husky for the first time she'd ever heard it, nearly passing for the octave of the average teenage boy. "This is simply an event that has surpassed my scope of what reality has always been."

Carly looked into his eyes.

Nevel was terrified.

And just for once, he wasn't able hide it behind his vanity.

"So?" she tried to keep her composure.

"I consent," he agreed with a sigh, taking her chalice with his and placing them back onto the tray.

Those two words made up the scariest sentence she'd ever heard in her lifetime. She couldn't decide what to do next. Where was she supposed to place her hands? She gathered her thick, dark hair and moved it aside to rest over one shoulder. She let her hand rest on the couch cushion just shy of his thigh.

Nevel closed his eyes and leaned in, expecting to feel her lips brush against his.

Instead she kissed the side of his neck. The unexpected sensation sent a shock through him.

She kept her eyes open to stare down at his shoulder, mentally talking her way through it. Carly felt as though she was walking on a tightrope, one slow and careful foot over the other. If she was grateful of anything, it was the meticulousness of his hygiene.

His hands moved to her waist and pulled her tighter against him.

She completely detached herself from the experience as she pressed her lips against his neck again. Her heart weighed down with guilt as she felt a tremor go through him.

Carly kissed her way up to his earlobe, "I. Know. Everything." she whispered.

His heart was thudding crazily as she pulled back and removed his arm from her waist, folding it back into his lap. "You are going to leave us alone forever." She explained it to him in the nicest way she was able to, "Forever Nevel, because I know every password to every account you have online. I know every password you'd change it to if you felt like you needed to and I know all about how you've been financing the electronic equipment you have in your computer lab."

Nevel blinked several times in confusion, stunned into silence.

"How would you mother react if she found out that she has six credit cards in her name that she's never heard of?" Carly smiled sadly as she picked the ransom note up and handed it back to him. "And most important of all, I know where Sam is. You've lost Nevel."

"What?" He stood up, feigning a haughty yet nervous chuckle, "No, that's impossible. The things you're saying are… well, they're…"

"Painful and humbling," she finished for him, standing up and walking out the door.

* * *

Despite her eyes being closed, Sam could tell exactly how many orderlies entered the room. _Is it sonar? I knew it... I'm a freaking bat. _Sam swallowed in an attempt to moisten her scratchy, parched throat with spit. A wary eyelid opened to a slit, taking a peek at a redheaded woman in a labcoat and three male nurses in scrubs standing four feet away from her. They were turned away, engrossed in sterilizing their medical instruments and preparing a pallet of beakers full of mysterious serums.

The shortest nurse tapped at a syringe, releasing all the air bubbles before swinging around to approach her. He asked in a heavy Finnish accent, "Will one of you undo her left hand for me? I've got to get a vein." Another male practitioner stepped around her and cut the double knot with a pair of scissors. As relieved as she was that her hand was free, she couldn't be less aware of the hypodermic needle. The most satisfying thing she could've done would've been to grab the guy by his face and teach him how soft his skull was compared to the concrete wall behind him. _Not yet, _she disciplined herself.

Sam felt a flicker of electricity in her veins: the prefight spark.

She stayed limp as though she was still asleep and ignorant to the world as he extended her arm out, positioning himself over her to inoculate her. Her nose crinkled. He smelled like chewing gum and disinfectant.

As he leaned in closer, Sam opened her eyes and cocked her head back.

_Perfect. Stay right there. _She drew a mental X on his face.

Sam launched her head forward like a slingshot when he pierced the skin, connecting dead center with the front of his skull. He screamed and dropped the needle, head snapping back like a crash test dummy's as his whole body flew back about three feet, landing with an ear-shattering collision into the steel cart of surgical equipment .

Sam flew to her feet as the orderly who had untied her hand stepped forward and threw a punch straight at her face. She laughed. She couldn't help it. It was just so absurd. The fist whizzed with an inch of Sam's face as she stepped back. _Too slow. _She whipped around the aluminum chair her right wrist was still bound to and used it as a nunchuck to uppercut him with. Blood sprayed onto her shoulder as his nose snapped. She caught the chair in her hands as it fell back down and used it to slam against his ribs, effectively cracking them and pinning him against a wall as she dealt with the third orderly barreling towards her from behind.

With her arms occupied, she unleashed on him a vicious kick combination. First a sidekick straight to his gut and then a sweeping roundhouse kick to his jaw, rocking his entire body into the far wall before he slid down into a heap on the floor. The electric current was singing now, pumping through Sam's veins.

Her gaze automatically flashed to the first man who tried to inject her as he recovered from her headbutt. He wiped at his ear with a muscular arm and found it stained with crimson blood. He came right at her, throwing a punch with his left arm_. _It was another telegraphed strike, easy to deflect. She shifted to the right and dropped the chair, grabbing the guy's arm, simultaneously kicking his shin with a swift toe strike. The force of his own momentum instantly flipped him in midair.

"No-"

His skull struck the sterile tile first, hitting it with a sickening THWOK before the rest of him rolled over with a groan.

A strange combination of weariness and adrenaline coursed through her veins. What was… what was in the needle? She approached the last person in the room, a redhead female who had been supervising the treatment. She clutched a clipboard to herself, backing away against the wall, putting the fallen cart in between her and the blonde captive.

"Hey Doc…" Sam grimaced as she began trudging forward, dragging the chair behind her. She gulped down another painful, dry swallow. "You wouldn't happen to have a peppy cola for me, would you?"

She made it three whole steps before the drug kicked in and the ground jumped up, giving her a hard slap in the face.

* * *

Carly Shay was totally on drugs. Except she wasn't. She wasn't the kind of girl that did drugs. Freddie couldn't think of any other explanation though. He'd seen the exhaustion in her eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. He couldn't even define the feeling anymore. His thoughts were slippery fish. If he tried to grab one, it would wiggle from his grasp. All he knew was that there was something wrong. "Let's just go get Sam, okay?" she asked quietly, her eyes averting his. Freddie tried to tip her chin up to look in her eyes, but she backed away from his touch and crossed her arms. It was the clearest piece of body language in the world. Translation: Don't touch me.

Seeing Freddie's face had basically braided Carly's guts together. She just hadn't been prepared for it. Don't even look at him, she told herself. The problem with looking at him was knowing that she wasn't going to be able to walk away without feeling like a horrible human being.

"I kissed Nevel."

Lightning must have struck Freddie a second time. He was dizzy and unsure, but he also felt weirdly clear. "….You what? Nevel? This is a joke right? Ha ha ha?"

She didn't say anything.

"Did he push himself on you? Why didn't you call out my name? You know I was on stand-by. We can walk back right now and I'll force-choke the rodent." His fingers curled together on their own accord like a vice.

Carly's head dropped straight down toward the sidewalk, every hair on her beautiful head hanging over her face. "No. It was my choice. Don't expect so much from me Freddie," she insisted. Was she insisting or pleading? Freddie couldn't even tell. Especially without seeing her face. Her voice sounded so tight, like she was forcing every sound from her tonsils. "I had my reasons and I don't think I always need to explain myself to you."

He was so taken back that he couldn't do anything but scoff.

The words came out of him like an eruptive volcano. "You willingly locked lips with him. The scum of the Earth? First Sam and now... Nevel couldn't PAY a girl to kiss him." Freddie's voice began to rise in decibel, "Who are you? Are you just making out with everyone who takes a number and gets in line? HOW CHEAP ARE YOUR AFFECTIONS?"

Carly flinched and stepped back. There was so much distance between them now. He had wounded her. He wanted to feel bad but instead he felt vindicated. If he was hurting this much, why shouldn't she? It was, after all, her fault. How could she commit such… such treachery?

Freddie's eyes cloaked over darkly and he looked upwards, squinting at a spot of empty space, concentrating on reigning in his emotions. His arms began shaking as anger overwhelmed him.

Above him, the sky began to darken. Clouds had gathered above them and were spiraling like a wooden top around a mysterious center of gravity. It began drizzling, soft at first before the crashing clouds released a blanket of rain on them in big wet drops. Steam rose from the surrounding pavement. Goose bumps pricked up and down Carly's arms. Freddie's hair flattened against his forehead as he looked at her. Not silently, impatiently demanding her next explanation, like she would expect. Just looking. Looking for something. Rain dotted her eyelashes with diamonds forming rivers down her cheeks. Her eyes had taken his and he couldn't look away

"Fredward Benson, you're a chump!"

"I'm a… chump?" Freddie repeated. He'd never been so offended in his life.

"Yes. How can you be so brilliant and clueless as the same time?"

"This is the thing Carly, you and I- well- we're-" water was dripping off Freddie's chin in waves.

She didn't want to hear another word of it. "You big dumb sack of dumbness! You don't need to spell it out anymore! I know how you feel. I do. You want me." Carly balled her hand up and punched him in the chest, her fist bouncing off him harmlessly. "What you don't realize is that you ALREADY HAVE me. We're best friends you jerk and we have been for years!"

Carly pushed her wet, sopping hair back behind her ear and shouted at him through the wild storm. Nearby trees had turned sideways, their leaves rustling together was drowning out her voice. "You, you OAF, have been marked in my life by this…" she searched for the words,"like... social highlighter. Do you realize that every time I enter a crowded room, you may be the first person I instinctively look for? And when you're not nearby, you're always in the back of my mind?"

He took a step closer, straining to hear her as a terrible tightness began seizing at his throat.

Carly's eyes were red and swollen, "I have always valued our friendship! Why do you keep hurting what we have by taking it for granted in the hopes of something more? Why can't you just accept me for the way I am? And for the way we are? I may not love you in the way you've always want me to, but it's there Freddie! My affection and concern for you exists and it's absolute... Why will that never be ENOUGH for you?"

The raging storm above had been a blessing is disguise to her as Carly confessed her soul to Freddie. The rain camouflaged the tears running down her face; the thunder smothered the sound of her stifled crying. She spun on her heel and slogged through the rain, saying one last time, "You're a chump, Fredward Benson."

* * *

**Author's Note: HelloOo Carvel. I am as shocked as the rest of you about the kiss. I didn't realize I was going to write it until it was written. It just... it needed to happen. o_o I don't like it either. ****Creddie-angst was as realistic as I could do. "Chump," was the worst word I could imagine Carly calling him.**

**Welcome to my insane world, SeddieLover36 and thank you for your insulting comment, Hovels.**

**To encourage me to write more, Review and tell me what you thought of this last chapter! Good and bad. FLAME ME, actually.**


	14. Chapter 14

It was a universal law that if you drop anything on the floor within a ten foot radius of a bed, that object will slowly and surely be sucked underneath the bed by some unseen magnetic force.

Or at least that's the theory Carly came up with on a Thursday night while she was searching desperately for a spare set of her brother's motorcycle keys. They had mysteriously disappeared one day when Spencer had a root canal scheduled at the dentist. He ended up missing his appointment and made a dramatic show of seeming disappointed about it. Of course, Carly saw straight through that paper-thin act. After a brief lecture on responsibility, she had left Spencer to spend the rest of the day slouching guiltily in the condo's assigned, "Punishment Corner," to begrudgingly stare at the wall and think about the consequences of his actions. An hour later when she returned to check on him, she had discovered her brother in an act of rebellion vivaciously painting a mural where he once so glumly stood.

Now she was on her hand and knees, swatting aside used paintbrushes, dirty socks and a torn aquarium net that a particularly clever goldfish had once exploited to outwit its master. She pushed aside an ancient fading quilt given to him by their Yakamite grandfather and recoiled for only a second before tossing out a moldy, half-eaten pizza crust. It was the fourth one she came across in thirteen minutes. Carly decided then and there that her brother, however much of a creative genius he was, however freshly conditioned his hair or neatly pressed his shirts were… was completely disgusting.

The brunette was surprised that there wasn't more sophisticated organic life crawling around underneath Spencer's bed. By now, she had half expected to meet a mass of talking bacteria sporting a bowler hat and a curled moustache introducing itself to her in a British accent.

Eureka, there it was. With a large sweeping gesture, Carly fished out the keyring from underneath her brother's bed, her arm coming out covered with a large clump of dust bunnies and a few long hairs. Sitting back on her haunches and covering her nose in the crook of her elbow, she violently shook it, producing a cloud of dust that could be described as a miniature tornado.

Footsteps treaded into the room from behind her. "I found the bugs; they were right where you said they'd be." Freddie said incredulously, his palm extended toward her, presenting the tiny cameras in his hands. He knew that she wouldn't know the worth of them but Freddie felt dwarfed by the small fortune in his grasp.

"What do you think we should do with them?" Carly asked, leaning forward to straighten out Spencer's comforter, positioning his pillows neatly in place.

Freddie scratched at his chin thoughtfully, "Well, if Sam was here, I'd suggest we surgically implant them into her earlobes so we'd always know where she was and wouldn't have to play this constant game of hide and seek with her." He drolled, attempting to sound lackadaisical and cheery.

"Just because you have a chip in your head doesn't mean we all want one." Carly commented back gingerly, trying to indulge in his playful banter.

A sneeze caught Carly off guard. It must've been contagious because it caused Freddie to sneeze too. For that brief stretch of time, in that reciprocity of biological functions, they shed their awkwardness and savored their shared moment. "Lurking underneath that pile of clothes over there are dust creatures that belong in a horror movie." Carly explained with a sincere bit of whimsy.

"I'll fight them off for you." Freddie casually mentioned.

And thus that instant was gone. Carly meant to smile, but it came out wobbly. "That's such a boy thing to say."

"What do you mean?"

"Only a boy would offer to be so gallant in such an offhand way," she asserted. "Girls are much more subtle. They're less obvious about the way they offer to help each other."

"Are you saying you don't like my chivalry?"

"No, I do like it. I get that it's who you are. You're a knightly boy. I accept that you're a boy. I'm happy that you're a boy."

Freddie looked happy that he was a boy too.

"I just don't necessarily need your heroics all the time, Freddie. You know, I have functioned in life for a good sixteen years fighting many of my own battles. I'm not made of glass." Carly fluffed a pillow meticulously. "I'm made out of.. human parts, just like you. Bones and muscle and skin and…"

"Fat," Freddie yielded.

"Not too much fat though!" Carly was quick to jump, "Just... a healthy amount. The average amount. The necessary amount." she clarified.

"I don't know how else to be." Freddie admitted, suddenly feeling unsure of himself. "Look, I understand that sometimes it can be stifling but… it's in my nature to be protective, Carly. It's the way I've been raised."

"There's a difference between being protective and controlling, Freddie. Protect me without trying to control me and I'll protect you too." Carly offered wearily. "Maybe I want to be the one to fight off the wild and ravageous dust creatures for you."

He gave a stilted cough, clearing his throat in an obvious ploy to get her attention. She turned her head to look at him. There was concern written all over Freddie's face. "I don't really think you're in any condition to do that." At her quizzical expression, he gestured with a tilt of his head towards the nearby bureau mirror.

Dark circles ringed her eyes, her skin was pallid and splotchy and her hair was a mess of wet tangles. "Ugh. I look like a nightmare. I should have my female license revoked." Carly joked, a tinge of shame coloring her words. "Let me go wash my face and we'll go to the garage." She rubbed at her eyes, making her way to the bathroom.

"Do you even know how to drive Spencer's motorcycle?" Freddie asked in consideration.

"No," was all that came back at him.

Freddie groaned.

"I'll learn! There's a manual. I'm a quick study. I study quickly. If quickness and studiousness were the two most valued traits in our society, people would run up to me to lift me onto their shoulders and make me their president." Carly's head popped out of the entryway, comb in hand, its teeth brushing through her hair. "You know, you don't believe in me as much as I'd like you to." She narrowed her eyes and pointed at him accusingly with the blade of her comb before disappearing behind the creak of the bathroom door.

"I do believe in you." Freddie quietly insisted, tucking the spy cams into his shirt pocket. "I'm just a boy... A boy who is horrible at being subtle."

* * *

"It doesn't make sense."

Cal muttered to himself as he watched a black and white projection on his wall of the newest .avi file that was sent to him by his trusty source. It was a file attached to an e-mail stating that his impeccably groomed sidekick was no longer interested in dealing with him anymore and that their agreement was dropped. He read it in disdain with a plan to inflict something horrible on the youngster later.

Right now, it was this damned film that had him swelling in frustration. "There's no explanation for it," he whispered to himself as two floating forms danced their way to and fro in front of his eyes. "More than six independent magnetic fields simultaneously working in succession. Lines of movement spontaneous rather than patterned. No veritable device to be found. No third party present as a control factor. It looks… innate. Instinctual. Quite beautiful actually."

"Where's our girl?" he gruffly demanded.

"I-I-in the lab, sir." the redheaded doctor responded, her voice shaky with fear.

"What have you done so far?"

"Everything you've asked for, Agent Zimmerman. We've taken skin grafts, blood, tissue, hair, saliva, nail and urine samples. There is this puzzling anomaly of her body metabolizing our injected sedatives at triple the rate than we expected so we've heightened the dosage to keep her calm and malleable during our procedures."

"Triple the rate?" Cal asked for clarification.

"Yes sir, they cycle through her like nothing else I've seen before. It's enough to make any medical professional worry. Even with the slight concussion earlier today, she's woken up twice to injure eight more of our orderlies in the last four hours of captivity."

Cal cursed, knowing that there was something occurring he didn't have a grasp on yet. Something bewildering. "I assume an ice bath is being utilized to slow the chemical purge?" An affirmative nod answered him. "I want an MRI scan added to the procedure list and conclusions delivered to me with your lead neuroscientist as soon as it's done."

"Understood, sir." she confirmed, scurrying out of his sight.

* * *

"Well, that was a wash-out idea." Carly simpered, adjusting her helmet as she and Freddie crawled out of the ditch. Her knees were scraped up and her pride wounded.

"Quick study… Huh." The battered brown-eyed boy remarked behind her despondently.

Carly didn't know what to say to that smartening comment so she turned around, pursed her lips and began started walking backwards with an outstretched arm.

"What are you doing now?" Freddie couldn't keep the haughty edge from escaping the corners of his mouth.

"Hitch-hiking! I am hitch-hiking because despite the dangers and the riskiness and the "Oh no, RUN!" I've always yelled at movie theatre screens when the driver turns out to be ill-intentioned and tries to harm the poor young runaway girl he's giving a lift to, I have somewhere I need to be." Carly announced grumpily.

Freddie opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it. He snapped his mouth closed and tightened his jaw resolutely, turning around to mimic her motions as the tail end of their two-person backwards parade.

They marched on for a solid twenty minutes without a single car or truck passing their way.

A gleaming flash of light caught Carly's attention and she looked to her right side to discover a broken tail-light hovering next to her. Attached to it was a mud-splashed motorcycle with a half-tank of gas available following her since the collision. Her head shot to her left to fall on the boy next door for an explanation.

"I'm just keeping our options open. You wanna try again?" Freddie asked supportively while landing the motorcycle next to her in a heap of creaking metal.

A look of sheer joy burst across Carly's face as she launched herself at him in a Carly-sized bearhug, nearly bowling him over. Freddie bewilderingly caught her in his arms twirling her around once before setting her down so she could hop onto the two-wheeler. "I wasn't sure you were going to trust me after that last wipe-out," she admitted, her hands finding a steady grip on the steering handles.

"It wasn't so bad. I still have all my limbs." Freddie situated himself comfortably behind her, worriedly grimacing in an effort to optimistically grin. Curiosity struck him at the most inopportune of times. "Why did we crash anyways?"

"I just confused my gas and brake pedals. It won't happen again."

* * *

In a seedy motel room off the interstate highway, Griffin took a puff from his cigarette and flipped through the newspaper scanning the winning lottery numbers to see if his ticket figures matched up. No dice. He nearly spilled the bowl of food balancing on his lap due to his disappointment. "Damn," he huffed in frustration, a burst of smoke ambushing his line of sight. Whether it was a stray spark jumping from his cigarette or the clumsy tip striking against the page, his newspaper caught on fire and he yelped, jumping up from the suspicious bed to throw the flaming object on the ground and stomped on it furiously with his boots while waving his leather jacket around to dissipate the smoke.

That scorched patch of carpet presented itself as a souvenir to the misery of his existence.

* * *

Four hours of careful driving and it was nearly midnight when Carly and Freddie arrived at their destination.

"This is it?" He asked judiciously, staring pointedly at the dimly-lit building fifty yards ahead of them.

"Yeah," she said, the dark ramparts giving her goosebumps up and down her arms.

"It's an old, abandoned army base. Nobody comes in and out of there anymore."

"Sam's in there. I know it." she said, her fingers aching to clutch at the wire fence separating them from the edifice.

Carly stepped behind Freddie as he bent over and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. With a considerable amount of willpower, Freddie focused on a point of origin above him and created a moving vacuum, slowly sucking the weight of the pair upwards, clearing the barbed wire fence. He released the vacuum allowing the mass to disperse and the twosome to land on the other side gently on their feet.

"Why did you look so nervous doing that?" Carly asked, earnestly examining the beads of sweat on his forehead.

"That was a good forty feet off the ground, hovering above a fence with running electricity surging through it. Why wouldn't I be nervous?"

"But you can control it, right?"

"Yeah… mostly. But sometimes I can't. Like with your control of mind-reading, even when you've got it turned off, there are thoughts that jump out at you that you can't help hearing right?"

"Yeah, just like the advertisements that come on during Girly Cow," she nodded before projecting in her radio voice, "'We will return you to your regular programming after these commercials.'"

"Carly…" Freddie started, "Does it work the other way around?"

She paused in her tracks. "What do you mean?"

* * *

The ever vigilant soldier stood at the entrance to the military medical base, armed with his rifle ready to halt anyone who didn't have clearance to enter. He stared straight in front of himself before feeling the overwhelming urge to look upwards. _Huh. The stars are looking so pretty tonight._ He noted to himself as his gaze lingered. He shook his head, snapping himself out of his daze as he adjusted his hold on his gun and focused forward. _Hm… my toes itch. _He lifted his foot and scratched the toe of it on the heel of his other boot. _Why does it itch so much? _He scratched it as a more furious pace. _Is it a blister? A spider bite maybe? _The leather of his boots were coming apart at the seams due to the accelerated pace of friction. _Is my foot on fire? _Sheer panic began overwhelming the young soldier. _OH SWEET JESUS, MY FEET ARE ON FIRE. _Tumbling to the ground, the flailing guard kicked his legs trying to put out the imaginary flames. He ripped his shoes off and fanned his socks, the heat becoming nearly unbearable to him.

He shot forward like a flame when he spied the two young teenagers hiding in the bushes. "Hey! HEY! WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING OVER THERE?" He hopped from one bare burning foot to the other as he scurried towards them. "You kids have a- do you have a- a can- a canteen? I need a bucket of water. I need to put out my feet!" He pathetically croaked out, his voice a tilted whine.

Freddie ducked his head from behind the bush first, cautiously stepping near him. "We're not carrying any water bottles but there's a river about an hour's walk that way." Freddie gestured to the west where the land was flat for miles. "You can't miss it. It's right over those hills."

Freddie couldn't contain his laughter as the soldier turned tail and started running for the desert.

"It worked?" A prudent set of feminine eyes peeked out from behind a branch.

"It worked." Freddie assured her, a huge grin emanating from his face.

Carly stepped out from behind the shrubbery, perspiration clinging to the side of her cheek. She wiped her neck with the back of her wrist abashedly as she took in a deep breath. "That wasn't as easy as it looked."

"It doesn't matter. You did it! That was amazing. I acquiesce to you." Freddie put his hand to his heart and bowed down to her in a graceful motion.

Carly took a step to the side, bent one leg behind the other and curtsied to him modestly. "Well, I couldn't have done it without you." she spoke with honesty. It was a relief to see the entrance way to the bunker so wide open and available for entry. The two friends felt a weight taken from their shoulders at bypassing through their first obstacle. "You know, the stars really are pretty tonight." Carly reflected, taking one last look at the sky before determinedly jaunting into the new unpredictable territory.

"Yeah, check out that full moon." Freddie remarked sportively as he followed her inside.

* * *

**Author's Note: ****I've outlined the next five chapters and I know exactly where this story's going. Cam and Seddie are in the works. As for a chapter release timetable? Inconclusive. I've never been busier in my life than right now.**

**I should also mention that I had another iCarly story in progress on this site that I've taken down to simply continue as an original story rather than a fanfic. It was far too AUish anyways.**

******I'm actually fairly satisfied with Creddie's foundation and the way they're developing. What do you readers think? Review. :)**

**Thank you Kurai-and-Yein, Blacksite, Sockstar, MosquitoMilk, ThePhantomHokage, an akward fish, DufFan, HannahCha, Alphateam101, and JohnFreeman for your opinions.**


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